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LIBRARYOF CONGRESS. 






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UNITED STATES" OF AMERICA. 



THE 

DOCTRINE 

OF 



ENTIRE SANCTIFICATION 



SCRIPTURALLY AND PSYCHOLOGICALLY 
EXAMINED. 



BY 
EEV. W. JONES, M.D., 

Of the St. Louis Conference. 









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PHILADELPHIA: 

NATIONAL PUBLISHING ASSOCIATION FOE THE PROMOTION OF 

HOLINESS. 

No. 921 ARCH STREET. 

1885. 






COPYRIGHT 1885. 

The Library 
of Congress 

washington 



J. B. KODGERS PRINTING CO., 
54 NORTH SIXTH ST., 
PHILADELPHIA. 



PREFATORY NOTE. 



THE Bible reveals the fact that God created man in His own 
likeness and image, and endowed him with almost un- 
limited capabilities, surrounded him with objects of beauty and 
attractiveness, and supplied every legitimate desire with its cor- 
responding objects of gratification, and provided for his happi- 
ness and growth with a gorgeousness that overwhelms the finite 
mind. But while yet in a whirl of bewilderment from the con- 
templation of man's Edenic surroundings, it surprises us with 
the story of his apostasy and alienation. 

Aside from the light the Bible pours upon the pathway of the 
race, the history of man is a dark and inexplicable tragedy. It 
appears as a pure and limpid stream bursting out on the moun- 
tain-side, to linger a moment amid Edenic beauties and per- 
fumes, and plunge forever into the morass of wretchedness and 
woe. But the gospel throws the " rainbow of promise " over the 
scene, disperses the darkness from man's environed pathway and 
" brings life and immortality to light." 

The gospel has to do with man only as a sinner — but as a re- 
deemed sinner. It brings to our ears the glad tidings that, 
although born a sinner, possessed of sinful tendencies, and sur- 
rounded with sinful influences, the entire race is under the 
gracious possibilities of a redemptive scheme, which, if im- 
proved, will give him a complete victory over the farthest-reach- 
ing influences and ultimate sequences of the fall. 

The subject of holiness is inseparable from man. No one can 
write or think of man's origin or destiny without considering 
him in his relation to the subject of personal holiness. Holiness 
was man's heritage in his primeval state, and holiness will be 

iii 



iv Prefatory Note. 

his restored condition when, with the seraphic throng, he shall 
compass the eternal throne. And holiness must be his condi- 
tion in this life if he would actuate the possibilities of the re- 
medial plan. 

The force of all the redemptive agencies focalize in the Divine 
effort to restore man to a life of holiness and fellowship with 
God, that shall secure to him a destiny of holy delights. 

As a well-defined view of man in Eden, and man fallen and 
redeemed, and a just conception of the gracious agencies of the 
gospel are essential to the salvation of every sinner and the sym- 
metrical growth and usefulness of every believer, we devote 
these pages to the subject of holiness in its doctrinal and philo- 
sophical aspects. 

This unpretentious volume seeks to glorify God by honoring 
the Lord Jesus Christ as the Saviour of men. It aims to refute 
the insidious errors that have manifested themselves more or 
less definitely in many sections of the church upon this subject. 
It rejects the doctrine " that sin is a part of the original plan " 
of the Divine Being with regard to the world; or that sin, 
having made its appearance, "it is utilized by the Lord and 
made tributary to His glory." We repudiate all theories that 
encroach upon the atoning merit or personality of the Son of 
God, or in any way supersede tl e personality and office of the 
Holy Ghost in the salvation of men. 

These pages give prominence to the fact that salvation, being 
a covenant work, is an event that must transpire between the 
covenanting parties, the Saviour, and the saved ; consequently 
it can neither be by the process of evolution nor culture, by at- 
trition nor growth, but that God saves all that come unto Him 
through the gospel of the Son of God. 

W. Jones. ,, 
Sedalicij Mo. 



INTEODUOTIOE". 



THE author of this volume is well and favorably 
known to many, who will, therefore, give his 
writings a cordial welcome. His genial spirit, his 
attractive manners, his holy cordiality, his transparent 
frankness, and his noble decision of character have 
endeared him personally to thousands of saintly hearts. 
His clear logic, his fervent eloquence, his loving appeals, 
his masterly pulpit ministry have made a wide and pro- 
found impression throughout this country. It will be no 
small recommendation to his many friends to say that in 
this volume his readers will recognize his style, almost 
hear his voice, and have herein treasured some of those 
valuable truths to which they have listened on the 
National Camp-ground and elsewhere. 

It was at the call of many who had listened to these 
thoughts as presented in sermons or otherwise, and 
especially at the urgent suggestion of the late lamented 
President of the National Camp-Meeting Association, 
Bro. Inskip, that the author finally consented to offer 
them to the public in the present permanent form. We 
think he has done the cause of holiness valuable service. 
He has furnished statements and arguments in compact 
form, that will be an effectual antidote to specious, subtle 
and damaging delusions among those who claim to be 
cultured, cautious, orthodox and progressive, and which 

V 



vi Introduction. 

will also neutralize the influence of such persons over 
the uneducated, simple-hearted, confiding and earnest. 

Without going minutely, or at undue length, into the 
author's design, or anticipating his own clear and cogent 
statements, we may be permitted to say that his aim is 
to establish a safeguard against dangerous fanaticisms 
and fatal heresies, which are now rife. He guards the 
scheme of redemption against necessitarianism. He 
stoutly opposes all errors, whether originating in pagan- 
istic philosophy or theistic evolution, and demonstrates 
the fact that gradualism, either by growth or attrition, is 
not the Divine process of salvation in any of its stages. 
His argument demonstrates that sin is no part of God's 
original plan concerning man. Sinfulness is not man's 
normal condition. Man is a responsible, fallen, alienated 
being, redeemed by Christ's vicarious death. Sin is never 
utilized to minister to God's glory. In the scheme of 
redemption it is not subjugated and made tributary to 
man's advancement, thus becoming to him a blessing 
and to God a co-worker. On the contrary, sin with all 
its train of consequences is to be destroyed. " For this 
cause was the Son of God manifested that He might 
destroy the works of the devil." All theories that 
encroach upon Christ's personality and atoning merit, or 
upon the personality and work of the Holy Ghost, are 
shown to be unscriptural, unreasonable and injurious. 
Salvation is a covenant between the Saviour and the 
saved; hence evolution, culture, attrition and growth 
have no part in the work of salvation, whatever other 
good purposes they may providentially subserve. Dis- 
crimination is clearly made between redemption and 



Introduction. vii 

development in their processes and agencies. Evolution, 
whether scientific or theistic, is necessarily and essentially 
the opposite of redemption. Evolution is a continuous 
process, either with or without epochs. Eedemption is 
inconceivable without forfeiture, the arrest of penalty by a 
third party, and the inauguration of an entirely different 
class of forces from those which were in operation before 
the Fall. "Christ is the end of the law for righteousness 
to every one that believeth." " Christ hath redeemed us 
from the curse of the law being made a curse for us." 
Thus, briefly and yet quite exhaustively, the fact and 
completeness of the redemptive scheme and its agencies 
are clearly set forth. 

We congratulate the author upon the successful com- 
pletion of his important work. We congratulate his 
readers upon the solid satisfaction they will receive from 
his logical and attractive presentation of that class of 
truths which, though more difficult to comprehend, are 
really fundamental and essential to knowledge, faith, 
experience and practice. We hope that the most san- 
guine expectations entertained in the preparation and 
publication of this book may be fully realized. 

E. I. D. Pepper. 

Philadelphia, 1885. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

PAGE. 

Man a Subject of Moral Law 1 

CHAPTER II. 
Man as a Sinner . . . 6 



CHAPTER III. 
Salvation by Redemptive Agencies 18 



CHAPTER IV. 
The Deliverance 24 

CHAPTER V. 
Redemption and Evolution not Similar 26 

CHAPTER VI. 
Holiness Defined 31 

CHAPTER VII. 

The Dual Form of Religious Experience .... 34 

ix 



x Contents. 

CHAPTER VIII. 

PAGE. 

The same Doctrine is TxUjght in the general tenor 

of the Scripture 43 

CHAPTER IX. 
Holiness Conditional 47 

CHAPTER X. 
Faith the Condition of Holiness 52 

CHAPTER XI. 
Faith not the Agent of Salvation 57 

CHAPTER XII. 
The Nature of Faith 61 

CHAPTER XIII. 
Faith the Act of Man based on Evidence .... 72 

CHAPTER XIV. 
Prayer as a Factor in the Salvation of Men . . 78 

CHAPTER XV. 

The Difference between Regeneration and Sanc- 



tification 



92 



Contents. xi 

CHAPTER XVI. 

PAGE. 

The Necessity of Holiness 104 

CHAPTER XVII. 
Optimism and Holiness 109 

CHAPTER XVIII. 
Sanctification not a Disciplinary Process .... 118 

CHAPTER XIX. 
Holiness not Attained by Growth 129 

CHAPTER XX. 
Holiness not Imputed 137 

CHAPTER XXI. 
Holiness more than the Repression of Evil . . . 141 

CHAPTER XXII. 

Holiness wrought Instantaneously in the Fulfill- 
ment of a Covenant Promise of God .... 148 

CHAPTER XXIII. 
Nature and Necessity of Consecration 156 



xii Contents. 

CHAPTER XXIV. 

PAGE. 

Entire , Saponification an Instantaneous Work 

wrought by the holy ghost ........ 165 

CHAPTER XXV. 
Growth after Purity 176 

CHAPTER XXVI. 
The Divine Provision for Growth and Culture . 190 

CHAPTER XXVII. 
The Philosophy of Religious Growth 197 

CHAPTER XXVIII. 

Legal Odedience neither Possible, Scriptural nor 

Satisfactory as a Means of Salvation . . . 209 

CHAPTER XXIX. 
The Extent of Christian Privilege 224 

CHAPTER XXX. 

Christian Manhood not Identical with Entire 

Sanctification 243 



THE DOOTKIKE 

OF 

ENTIRE SANCTIFICATION. 



CHAPTEK L 
MAN A SUBJECT OF MOEAL LAW. 

DIVINE sovereignty and moral agency involve 
the fact of relationship, and are consistent 
with each other. Society is organized on the as- 
sumption that every human being of mature years 
and sound mind is responsible for his conduct. 
Civil government is based on this primary fact, 
and if man is not in natural possession of bona 
fide power over his actions, all so-called courts of 
justice are channels of organized cruelty. 

But if man is a responsible member of society, 
the pulpit and press should assume such an atti- 
tude toward man as to formulate public sentiment 
in harmony with that fact. The existence of fixed 
law does not imply, as some have assumed, that 

l 



2 The Doctrine of Entire Sanetifieation. 

there is no God, nor, as others teach, that God is 
circumscribed in His actions by the necessary laws. 
The existence of fixed law implies the fact that 
these laws in the Divine procedure are not, and 
cannot be, set aside nor suspended at will. 

The one primary fact in the moral government 
of God is that in His creative acts, and in His 
providential movements, God does not go con- 
trary to His established laws. 

It is one of the delusions of atheism that every 
act of man is predetermined by inexorable law. 
Neither atheistic nor theistic fatality has any war- 
rant in the necessary laws. 

All that is legitimately implied in fixed law is, 
"that there is provided in the necessary laws many 
possibilities which are left to other agencies," — 
possibilities which can be determined into facts by 
accountable beings. 

The necessary laws are eternal, — they were Be- 
fore God made this world or placed the first star on 
the diadem of night. Hence, while we do not con- 
cede that God was obliged to create, we do perceive 
that whether He create worlds or men, He must 
proceed according to the nature of existing laws. 

It was not possible for the Creator of all things 
to make a world that would not occupy space, and 



Man a Subject of Moral Law. 3 

every square the Divine Architect would form 
must, of necessity, have four equal sides. These 
laws being no more nor less than the manifesta- 
tion of eternal principles, or being already in ex- 
istence, if God or any subordinate being should 
attempt to produce anything, these laws would, of 
necessity, act as forces in the creation. " Thus, if 
God would make a triangle, the three angles must 
be equal to the two right angles." There are many 
other illustrations of this principle, — as that it is 
"impossible that parallel lines should meet," or 
that a " circle should touch a straight line at more 
than one point." 

But the force that gives to matter existence and 
shape does not depend on these laws, — the all 
power of the universe is the Personality, that is 
above all law, and yet whose laws all harmonize 
with His own being. Instead of the necessary 
laws supporting infidelity, they prove the existence 
and sovereignty of God, for these laws absolutely 
require some being, some power, primary or dele- 
gated, outside of the laws to bring to pass that 
which we see about us. Therefore we say God is 
master of the necessary laws, for they can effect 
nothing without Him. 

Man being a child of God is also master of the 



4 The Doctrine of Entire Sanctification. 

necessary laws, God having made him so in the 
beginning. Universal experience confirms this. 
We do daily decide questions. We determine ex- 
isting possibilities into facts. Our volitions pro- 
duce actions, and the actions crystallize under the 
law and remain forever. As a secondary being, 
man creates under the law, but always by the law. 
Therefore, as the necessary laws are forces both in 
the physical and in the moral world, and as man 
is a responsible agent in the production of things, 
we perceive that it is not God that does all which 
we see about us, for man having bona fide power 
of choice, he absolutely decides within the realm 
of his activities that which shall be. And it is 
for the abuse of this volitional power that man 
shall give account to God. 

There is one more basal fact: If man does any- 
thing himself, any act for which he is responsible, 
he must create facts, he must originate actions. 
If this is not true, nothing occurs because of man's 
relation to it, but whatever transpires is produced 
by some other cause. 

When I move my arm, I am the originator of 
the act,— it is the product of my will ; if this is 
not so, it is instigated by some outside power actiug 
on my will. Therefore, if the determining power 



Man a Subject of Moral Law. 5 

is outside the individual, the responsibility is also 
beyond him, for the responsibility attaches where 
the act originates. 

But we assume that man being a creative being, 
in a secondary sense, he is in possession of a power 
not specifically under the control of the laws of 
cause and effect, — a power not coercively regulated 
by any other influence, human or divine, — a power 
not in bondage to any other faculty, and that power 
is the human will. If man is justly amenable to 
any law, municipal or Divine, for any act he per- 
forms, the act must originate with him. If he is 
a responsible factor in the government of the world, 
his will must be a fountain of causation, not sec- 
ondary in its operations, but originating activities. 
It is because man is thus constituted that he cannot 
be perfectly happy, except while he chooses that 
which harmonizes with the highest standard of 
right within the range of his knowledge. If the 
will place the affections on improper objects, the 
man is enslaved, degraded and ruined eternally. 
If the will be constrained to choose the wrong, or 
if it be prevented from choosing the right by 
overpowering influence, or shut up by an inscru- 
table power to the one choice, there cannot be justly 
inflicted punishment for any act he may do. 



6 The Doctrine of Entire Sanctijication. 

CHAPTER II. 

MAN AS A SINNER.* 

ERRONEOUS views of the physical and moral 
condition of man when first created have ever 
been the fruitful source of fallacious conclusions 
respecting the scheme of redemption and the des- 
tiny of the race. We cannot proceed understand- 
ingly in an investigation of the original penalty 
of the law without first ascertaining, as nearly as 
possible, the real status of Adam as a physical and 
moral being at the time he was placed on trial in 
the "garden of delights," under the law of his 
Maker, as the rule of his life. 

In the presentation of this subject we assume 
that Adam, as a subject of Divine law, was created 
conditionally immortal, and that his mortality was 
produced by sin privatively. There is a difference 
between a state of exemption from death — by the 
special favor of heaven and by special provisions — 
and a state of positive inherent immortality. 

The latter would have been incompatible with 

*This chapter is compiled from Bishop Merrill's review article 
on the " Original Penalty of Law." 



Man as a Sinner. 7 

the probationary character of the life in Eden. It 
would imply such immunity from ill and such 
security against the mutations of time as belong 
only to a state of confirmed holiness. 

This was not Adani's condition. He was not 
yet confirmed in holiness, neither was his immor- 
tality of body confirmed. It is sufficient to hold 
that the constitution of his body, with respect to 
immortality, corresponded to the condition of his 
soul with respect to holiness. As he was free 
from sin and on trial for a state of confirmed holi- 
ness, so was his body exempt from the reigning 
power of death and on probation for confirmed 
immortality. He was not intrinsically incapable 
of death without a miraculous change of his na- 
ture, nor was dissolution a necessity of his being. 
Though physically capable of death, it had no 
claim upon him; all of God's purposes respecting 
him could have been accomplished without dying. 

Had he kept the law of his probation and 
walked with God during the period of his trial, 
he would have pleased God, as Enoch afterward 
did, and might have obtained as honorable a trans- 
fer from earth to heaven. 

Adam was a physical being, and, as such, was 
subject to the specific laws of life and health ; the 



8 The Doctrine of Entire Sanctijication. 

perpetuity of his vigor depending on his conformity 
thereto, as the continuance and confirmation of his 
holiness depended on his obedience to and fellow- 
ship with God. 

Had he continued to obey the laws of his being 
and probation, he might have increased in strength 
and advanced in virtue until he became invulner- 
able to the assaults of temptation. Then, confirmed 
in holiness and immortality, apostasy and death 
would have been impossible to him, and God would 
have taken him to heaven. The first announce- 
ment to Adam that he should return to dust shows 
clearly that his dissolution was caused by sin. 
"And unto Adam God said, Because thou hast 
hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast 
eaten of the tree, of which I have commanded thee, 
saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the 
ground for thy sake ; in sorrow shalt thou eat of 
it all the days of thy life; Thorns also and thistles 
shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat 
the herb of the field: In the sweat of thy face 
shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the 
ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust 
thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return." Why 
was the ground cursed for man's sake? Why 
must Adam live in sorrow and eat by labor? 



Man as a Sinner. 9 

Why must he return unto the ground out of which 
he was taken? Because he ate of the forbidden 
fruit. No other reason is given. "Sin entered 
into the world and death by sin." " By man came 
death." The account of Adam's expulsion from 
Eden confirms this view of the subject. It is 
definitely intimated that in the garden he had 
access to the means of warding off decay and of 
perpetuating his existence in the flesh. But now 
he must go out from Eden lest he prevent the 
doom. "And the Lord God said, Behold, the 
man is become as one of us, to know good and 
evil ; and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take 
also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever: 
therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the 
garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence 
he was taken." Clearly he was removed from the 
tree to prevent his immortality. 

(a) The original penalty was not inflicted. 

Assuming that bodily death was caused by sin, 
the question arises: Was this death the penalty 
intended in the language of God to Adam, — "In 
the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die"? 
No little obscurity has gathered about this point 
by supposing it was necessary to interpret the 
penalty of the law by the facts developed in the 



10 The Doctrine of Entire Sanctification. 

subsequent history of the first offenders. At the 
first thought this would seem to be the proper 
course, but a little reflection will show its impro- 
priety. The reason is, the facts developed in their 
subsequent history did not result from a literal 
execution of the penalty. Had the penalty met 
with no interruption in its course, the history of 
Adam and Eve after the transgression would have 
been different from their actual history. Had 
justice seized the trembling culprits and granted 
them no respite from the rigid demands of the 
law, their actual experience would have revealed 
unmistakably the nature of the penalty. But this 
was not the case. The penalty was not literally 
executed. When they fell, they found justice hand- 
in-hand with mercy; mercy instituted a new pro- 
bation, in which life was set before them as the gift 
of God through the seed of the woman. This new 
trial, of necessity, involved the suspension of the 
penalty already incurred. The penalty being sus- 
pended as the first result of the redemptive scheme, 
to make way for the new trial and the operations 
of grace, it is manifestly improper to interpret the 
penalty by the facts that followed its suspension. 

(b) The original penalty not identical with the 
actual results. 



Man as a Sinner. 11 

Those who explain the original penalty of the 
first offenders tell us that the death threatened was 
threefold, — spiritual, temporal and eternal; that 
they died spiritually the day they sinned; they 
became mortal and exposed themselves to eternal 
death. This statement agrees with what we know 
of the state of the first sinners after the fall and 
expresses the condition of their posterity as pro- 
bationers, but that it explains the original penalty 
seems far from the truth. Men are mortal, dead 
in sins and exposed to eternal death, yet they are 
not now in a penal condition, but under gracious in- 
fluences and within the reach of salvation. Adam's 
condition after the fall was not penal, but proba- 
tional. On the day of transgression he forfeited 
all the life he possessed, as well as all he had in 
prospect, but justice did not enforce the forfeiture 
in the form or to the full extent of his desert. 
In some sense he died the day he sinned, for sin 
separated him from the source of life and holiness 
and left him morally dead; but grace inter- 
posed with quickening power to begin the de- 
velopment of a new life immediately after the 
fall, so that while his holiness was lost, and his 
ability to transmit to his posterity an uncorrupted 
moral constitution was destroyed, he was not 



12 The Doctrine of Entire Sanetification. 

left to the unmitigated working of deserved 
penalty. 

Furthermore, the description of the penalty 
that represents him as simply exposing himself to 
eternal death is unsatisfactory, as it implies that 
there was no exposure to that penalty during the 
first probation, whereas it is more reasonable to 
suppose that his exposure to the whole penalty 
corresponded with his liability to sin. This lan- 
guage is also objectionable, because it implies that 
the first sin did not really incur eternal death, but 
only endangered the transgressors, making the in- 
fliction of this part of the penalty to depend on 
some after-contingency. It is better to say in this 
regard the penalty was indivisible. 

When the first sinners incurred part, they in- 
curred all the penalty, and if they were afterward 
found with eternal death suspended on conditions, 
its actual infliction depending on their conduct 
subsequent to the first sin, that is to be accounted 
for, not as showing the nature of the original 
penalty, but as resulting from the advent of the 
remedial system, which suspended the penalty 
already incurred, and raised the sinning parties to 
the privileges of a new probation. If we over- 
look this fact we shall fail to mark correctly the 



Man as a Sinner. 13 

transition from the covenant of works to the 
covenant of grace, and be unable to account for 
the penalty of the law being suspended on condi- 
tions to be performed by those who had once in- 
curred its entire force. It is as a fallen being, and 
yet embraced in the covenant of redemption and 
enjoying the probational advantages secured there- 
in, that Adam is the representative head of the 
human family. 

(c) The nature of death. 

The radical idea contained in the word death is 
the destruction of life. AH death is eternal, in 
the nature of things. This is implied in the fact 
that it is the destruction and not the suspension of 
life. Stripped of the trappings of fancy, which 
lively imaginations have gathered about it, death 
appears without form, attribute, quality or being. 
Death is an effect and not an agent; hence it can- 
not be a factor in the salvation of man ; and if 
death once occur, whether in the vegetable, animal 
or spiritual kingdom, it will reign forever, unless 
arrested by Divine power in the production of a 
new life. 

In this way will the resurrection of the body 
occur and not by the natural termination of death. 
So also the soul, dead in trespasses and in sins, 



14 The Doctrine of Entire Sanetifieation. 

must escape the power of spiritual death, not by 
the natural expiration of death, but by the quick- 
ening power of the Holy Ghost. Death never 
ends of itself, and it follows as a logical sequent 
that the death incurred by the first sin was not of 
a temporary character, whether we understand it 
of the body or the soul or both. It was in its 
nature a finality, and if it did not prove such in 
fact, that was owing to the intervention of mercy 
in the redemptive scheme, with remedial agencies 
for bringing man out of his fall. By this inter- 
vention the penalty was stayed, and but for this 
the offenders must have died in the full sense of 
the word in the day they sinned. 

Adam must have so understood it, and he evi- 
dently looked for a sudden death by the judgment 
of heaven, and the penalty enforced would have 
realized his saddest fears. He had a soul and 
body each endowed with a life peculiar to its na- 
ture. By keeping the law of his probation his 
holiness and immortality would have been con- 
firmed ; but by sin all was forfeited. The death 
incurred would have destroyed the life of his soul 
and body, and thereby cut off all prospective 
life. 

It might not have destroyed his being, as we can 



Man as a Sinner. 15 

conceive of the soul existing without its peculiar 
life, which we deem allied to, if not identical with, 
holiness, but it would have deprived him of all 
that is expressed in the term eternal life. 

(d) Temporal evil a sequent of sin and not the 
penalty. 

The preceding facts compel us to distinguish 
between the penalty and the consequences of sin. 
That only is penalty which the law affixes to the 
crime as punishment. The penalty for drunken- 
ness is fine and imprisonment ; the sequents are 
ruined health, ruined morals, loss of character, 
loss of position, degradation and sorrow, involv- 
ing the poverty and wretchedness of the friends 
of the transgressor. 

The penalty of Adam's sin is death ; the conse- 
quences of his sin, in the shape of blinded under- 
standing, perverse will, corrupted passions, with 
actual subjection to mortality, by reason of his 
separation from the tree of life, remained upon 
him, and became the heritage of his posterity ; 
but the penalty, the direct infliction of death by the 
judgment of God in the day of transgression, was 
arrested by the timely advent of the covenant of 
redemption ; therefore death, as it entered into the 
world by sin, and passed upon all men ; comes not 



16 The Doctrine of Entire Sanctification. 

as the penalty of Adam's sin, but as a consequence, 
allowed in view of the remedial and compensating 
provisions of grace ; also the pain, privation and 
weariness, and the sorrow to which the first sin- 
ners were subjected in consequence of sin are not 
to be regarded as parts of the original penalty, but 
as elements of the new probation, evil in themselves, 
but checkmated and defeated under the manifesta- 
tions of grace in the gospel system. Death being 
a sequent of sin, is styled by the apostle " the last 
enemy/' and possesses no remedial value whatever; 
we place it on a level with perverted moral nature. 

Under the new probation we are born so related 
to Adam as to inherit from him the evil of de- 
pravity and death, and so related to Christ as to 
derive from Him the benefit of grace and life ; 
death is neither penal nor remedial, for it is not 
the mere thing of dying that renders it a blessing 
or a curse, but the moral condition at the time of 
death, — " The sting of death is sin." 

This view of the subject exhibits the holiness 
and justice of God so as not to obscure the milder 
beams of His goodness and mercy. It secures to 
God the glory of the salvation of all wdio are 
saved, and leaves the condemned without excuse. 
It shows guilty Adam and Eve snatched from im- 



Man as a Sinner. 17 

pending death and spared to propagate their species 
as a fallen race, while justice and mercy shine with 
equal radiance in surrounding them with the helps 
and hopes of a better covenant. 



18 The Doctrine of Entire Sanctification. 



CHAPTEE III. 
SALVATION BY REDEMPTIVE AGENCIES. 

THE Scriptures continually assert the fact of 
redemption in Christ Jesus, and man can 
have no just conception of the extent, processes or 
agencies of salvation except he discern clearly the 
nature of redemption. 

" By redemption is meant the recovery of man- 
kind from sin and death by the obedience of Jesus 
Christ, who on this account is called the Re- 
deemer." 

Redemption is a supernatural fact, wrought for 
man by another party. The world assails the 
church with great virulence at this point, and, 
looking at the regularity with which nature per- 
forms all her functions, and the certainty with 
which natural law operates in every department 
of this material universe, declares the impossibility 
of the supernatural. But the author of the great 
salvation continues to announce that the " Gospel 
came not in word only, but in power and in the 
Holy Ghost and in much assurance." And the 



Salvation by Redemptive Agencies. 19 

Apostle continues, " In whom we have redemption 
in His blood, even the forgiveness of sins." " For 
as much then as the children are partakers of flesh 
and blood, He also Himself took part in the same 
that through death He might destroy him who 
had the power of death, — that is, the devil — and 
deliver them who were all their life subject to 
bondage, for verily He took not on Himself the 
nature of angels but the seed of Abraham ; where- 
fore in all things it behooved Him to be made like 
unto His brethren, that He might be a merciful 
and a faithful High Priest in all things pertaining 
to God to make reconciliation for the sins of the 
people." 

The incarnation of Jesus Christ as a necessary 
step in the accomplishment of man's salvation is 
the stupendous fact of the gospel, luminous in every 
aspect with ineffable glory. 

Every effort of those styling themselves " ad- 
vanced thinkers" to adjust the church in its doc- 
trines and experiences to the common idea of 
development is fatal to the whole scheme of 
redemption. 

The reason given by the apostle for the incarna- 
tion and death of Jesus Christ is specifically stated 
to be that " He might destroy the devil " and de- 



20 The Doctrine of Entire Sanctijication. 

liver the captives. The entering in of sin into this 
world made this a necessity. The divine law had 
been violated, and as law is inflexible and could 
neither be so modified as to adapt it to man's con- 
dition as a sinner, nor let it remain, and cancel 
the penalty, such a procedure would destroy all 
authority and subvert all government. Therefore, 
after our ancestral head had sinned and become 
guilty, a righteous administration must either in- 
flict the penalty and cut off the offender at once, or 
he must accept the mediation of one able in all 
things to accomplish the reconciliation. Jesus 
Christ voluntarily assumed man's place before the 
law. In order to do this, he must come under 
such conditions as surrounded the criminal at the 
time the offense was committed. Hence Paul says, 
" For as much as the children were partakers of 
flesh and blood, He also himself likewise took part 
in the same." He submitted to the same environ- 
ments, met the same temptations, was exposed to 
the same perils, " was made under the law." 

The humanity of Jesus was therefore real : (1) 
As to nature and quality. It was human nature; 
flesh, spirit and soul. The human nature of Jesus 
was not mongrel ; there was no intermingling of 
the two natures so as to let down the Divine nature 



Salvation by Redemptive Agencies. 21 

and lift up and remove to another sphere of ac- 
tivity the human ; the two natures were hypostat- 
ically united. The Divine nature is pure, unsul- 
lied Deity, the eternal God. The human was 
pure, unfallen, sinless human nature ; anything that 
any other human nature could do, enjoy, or suffer 
was possible to the human nature of Jesus. 

(2) The human nature of Jesus was real as to 
its purpose. 

That He might be susceptible to death. If He 
would redeem the race, He must meet the physical 
conditions of a mediator; Deity could neither suf- 
fer nor die, but the humanity of Jesus was of the 
seed of Abraham. Two things must be done by 
the Redeemer of man : (1) He must demonstrate to 
the universe the justice of the claim against the 
culprit ; He must make it apparent that the de- 
mands of the law against Adam were such that He 
could have met them in every particular ; this Jesus 
could not do, except He keep every precept of the 
law. God must be just if he " would be the jus- 
tifier of him which belie veth in Jesus." 

(2) Having kept the law inviolate, and thus 
demonstrated man's ability to do so, He was pre- 
pared to die for the criminal, " the just for the 
unjust;" an agent untried or necessitated in his 



22 The Doctrine of Entire Sanctification. 

actions would neither vindicate the justice of God 
nor demonstrate his own fitness for vicarious 
death. 

But being possessed of all the possibilities of 
the principal in all their varieties and degrees, 
He vindicated the government of God and de- 
monstrated His own fitness for the mediatorial 
office. 

He died for the race of man " that by death He 
might destroy him who had the power of death, — 
that is, the devil." 

This destruction does not imply the annihilation 
of his personality, but has reference to the over- 
throw of his kingdom. 

God does not subordinate the works of the 
devil to His holy purpose and make them a bless- 
ing to man, but He executes the sentence of the 
law against the seducer of man, puts him to death 
and despoils his kingdom. 

By dying as a malefactor, Jesus met the right- 
eous claims of the law and delivered the whole 
human family from its power, from the bondage 
and thrall of eternal death. The vicarious death 
of Jesus removed the embargo from the entire 
race, and offered free and full salvation to every 
child of man when " He died for all ; " so far as 



Salvation by Redemptive Agencies. 23 

the claims of the law are concerned, "then all 
died." 

But this salvation is suspended on such condi- 
tions, as that all who refuse to accept the gracious 
provisions of that which Jesus has done must 
remain under sentence of eternal death. 



24 The Doctrine of Entire Sanetification. 



CHAPTEE IV. 

THE DELIVEEANCE. 

THIS aspect of the remedial system is very im- 
portant. " There is a difference between atone- 
ment and redemption. Atonement is for sin ; 
redemption is from sin and suffering" " We 
may pray for redemption but not for atonement." 
The universality of the atonement makes universal 
redemption a glorious possibility. All that Jesus 
did for humanity is initial and preparatory ; He is 
now waiting for man's consent to deliver him from 
the bondage of sin. The emphasis is on the word 
deliver. He does not propose to culture man out 
of a state of sin, nor deliver him into a new life ; 
He does not say he will reform him from the 
bondage of evil habits. He came to destroy the 
enslaver and liberate his subjects. 

This deliverance is as comprehensive as the 
thraldom of sin. He delivers from the guilt, do- 
minion and impurity of sin, and from the fear and 
dominion of death. Whatever may be the seeming 
difficulties of philosophy, if Jesus is the Redeemer, 



The Deliverance. 25 

He must deliver those who trust Him from the far- 
thest-reaching and ultimate sequences of sin, or He 
is not the victor. He is not only a teacher and an 
illustrious example, but He is emphatically our 
sacrifice, — " For even Christ our passover is sac- 
rificed for us." He did not act in the arena of 
life only, but He went into the dominion of 
death ; He was immured in the grave ; He came 
not only to open deaf ears and give sight to blind 
eyes, to loosen tongues and liberate palsied limbs, 
to heal the sick, cleanse the leper and cast out 
devils, but to raise the dead, — Jesus entered the 
dark chamber of the " king of terrors," seized 
the usurper by his beard, broke his helmet, wrested 
his sceptre and extracted his sting. He flung 
wide open the massive gates of death's loathsome 
prison and flooded it with light. He cleft down 
through the gloomy portals of the tomb, and life 
and immortality stood before Him in beautiful ar- 
ray. " Death is swallowed up in victory!" 
"Thanks be unto God, who giveth us the victory 
through our Lord Jesus Christ ! " 



26 The Doctrine of Entire Sanctification. 



CHAPTER V. 
REDEMPTION AND EVOLUTION NOT SIMILAR. 

A LITTLE attention to the use of terms will re- 
veal the fact that redemption and evolution 
are not synonymous; that they are not similar; 
that the processes of redemption are not like the 
processes of evolution in any of their phases ; that 
they do not belong to the same system. 

Evolution is that process by which the power 
inherent in vegetable, animal or spiritual nature 
yields to the potent influence of law from without 
and constantly presses toward some more mature 
state, or, bursting through all known limits, as- 
sumes new forms of life with still greater possi- 
bilities yet unfulfilled. 

Kedemption is that process by which one per- 
son does for another, or for a whole class of the 
same species, that which they could not do for 
themselves. 

In the relation of these two theories to the human 
race, scientists have espoused the development 



Redemption and Evolution not Similar. 27 

theory and look for the origin of man in the lower 
departments of the animal kingdom, from which 
he has been gradually pushed out and rounded up 
to his present dimensions by the power of law 
acting on inherent possibilities. 

The orthodox view of redemption implies a be- 
lief in all the Bible says regarding man's Divine 
origin, his primitive state of holiness and conse- 
quent happiness in Eden, the forfeiture of his 
first state and his subordination to Satan, the cor- 
ruption of his moral nature and the subjection of 
his physical being to a state of mortality, as a con- 
sequence of his sin and his disenthralment from 
the ultimate and farthest-reaching results of sin 
by the interposition of a third party. 

If it is by redemptive processes that man is 
saved, evolution is impossible in the economy of 
grace. We do not assume that evolution is not 
possible with God ; He might have proceeded on 
that plan in the beginning, so far as we can now 
see; but we have to deal with facts. Evolution 
denies the lapse of man's moral nature, and as- 
sumes that from the first man has gradually ad- 
vanced to his present position. 

Redemption implies that there was something 
lost, — forfeiture precedes redemption. If salva- 



28 The Doctrine of Entire Sanctification. 

tion is accomplished by development, man is nei- 
ther guilty nor defiled, and needs only strength 
and guidance in order to reach the highest degree 
of perfection. But if man is a sinner, if he has 
incurred guilt by transgression, and his moral na- 
ture has contracted impurity, his salvation can 
only be accomplished by another. 

The Bible is explicit on this point ; it abounds 
with direct statements. The name of Jesus is in- 
dicative of His work. "His name shall be 
called Jesus, for it is He that shall save His peo- 
ple from their sins." He does not put them in 
the way of saving themselves. He does not teach 
them that by a tortuous pathway leading through 
deep defiles of moral darkness infested with fierce 
temptations, extending over weary years of wast- 
ing toil and up mountain-heights of imminent 
peril, He will direct them to a place of safety ; but 
" He bore our griefs and carried our sorrows, and 
by His stripes we are healed." By His death, 
Jesus met the claims of the law redeemed, and 
now holds in trust, for all who will accept, the alien- 
ated estate of man's moral purity, and will "save 
to the uttermost all that come, unto God by Him." 
There is one more basal fact, — if God's methods 
of salvation are redemptive, His agencies also 



Redemption and Evolution not Similar. 29 

must be of a redemptive character and must pro- 
ceed from redemption's source. 

The Pharisees charged Jesus with collusion 
with the devil, declaring that " He cast out devils 
by Beelzebub, the prince of the devils." Jesus 
hurled back the vile imputation, declaring that by 
the Spirit of God He " cast out devils." 

Redemption signifies " to deliver from," — to 
save from all the consequences of sin as certainly 
as from sin itself. Therefore, whatsoever origin- 
ates in sin, or in any way proceeds from sin, can- 
not be regarded as a gospel agent. As sin in it- 
self includes all evil agencies by which it propa- 
gates itself and becomes universal and perpetual 
in its diffusion, even so the atonement of the Lord 
Jesus Christ is the source of all the redemptive 
agencies, and whatever is not traceable to that as 
its procuring cause, and does not proceed from 
that, is not a part of the gospel machinery. The 
divinely-appointed agencies of salvation may be 
grouped into three classes, (1) the Written Word, 
(2) Human Instrumentalities, (3) the Holy 
Ghost. Rhinehard says, (1) " Christ takes away 
the deception of sin by His doctrine. (2) He 
takes away the punishment of sin by His death. 



30 The Doctrine of Entire Sanctification. 

(3) He takes away the dominion of sin by His 
Spirit and example/' 

As redemption is something done for man by 
another, if Jesus is the Redeemer and salvation is 
accomplished by redemptive agencies, He can 
save at once, He can make every whit whole, He 
can cleanse from all unrighteousness the moment 
man submits perfectly to His Divine authority. 
Holiness, as a personal experience, therefore, is not 
only possible to the small number of obscure 
Christians, but is obligatory upon all men. 



Holiness Defined. 31 



CHAPTER VI. 
HOLINESS DEFINED. 

HOLINESS is spoken of as a quality, also as a 
state, and has regard to man's spiritual na- 
ture, and indicates his moral state. Holiness is 
predicated of believers, but never of unregenerate 
sinners. God commands the sinner to repent and 
believe the gospel; to the believer he says, "Be ye 
holy." Holiness of heart and entire sanctification 
are terms that express the same idea. Holiness 
signifies the quality or state of being holy; it im- 
plies purity of moral essence; it implies freedom 
from actual sin, and also from indwelling depravity. 
When the term is applied to the Supreme Being, 
it signifies "perfect moral purity." The holiness 
of God is "absolute, independent and underived," 
while holiness in man is "relative, dependent and 
derived." The doctrine of entire sanctification as 
taught in the gospel is not given an obscure place 
among the important truths of the Bible. It has 
a definite place and a right relation to all the other 
truths of the Christian system, and is luminous 



32 The Doctrine of Entire Sanctijieation. 

with the Divine glory and conspicuous on every 
page of inspiration, and is the vital point of man's 
salvation. The term holiness more perfectly ex- 
presses the true inward spirit of the gospel than 
any other one English word. God not only com- 
mands us to be holy, but he declares that " without 
holiness no man shall see the Lord." It is the 
unchangeable decree of the Almighty to exclude 
from heaven those who live and die under the 
defiling influence of sin. 

In the recovery of man from the ruin of sin 
there are three distinct phases of the divine work : 

(1) The removal of his guilt as a transgressor 
of the law. This is done by the Divine act of 
pardon, which brings the penitent sinner into har- 
mony with the law of God, establishes correct legal 
relations between the Father and His returning 
child, and gives peace to the conscience. " Being 
justified by faith, we have peace with God through 
our Lord Jesus Christ." 

(2) The second phase of this reconciliation is 
the renewal of the spiritual life, which takes place 
simultaneously with the act of pardon and brings 
the candidate into harmony with the life of God. 
These two constitute the one experience of the new 
birth, or the sonship of God. 



Holiness Defined. 33 

(3) The third aspect of this work is the purifi- 
cation of the moral nature, or the elimination of 
depravity from the soul, which brings the perfect 
believer into harmony with the nature of God. 
" According as His Divine power hath given unto 
us all things that pertain to life and godliness 
through the knowledge of Him that hath called 
us to glory and virtue, whereby are given unto us 
exceeding great and precious promises, that by 
these ye might be partakers of the Divine nature, 
having escaped the corruption that is in the world 
through lust." 

When this glorious change is wrought in the 
moral nature, so as to become an experimental 
fact, the war in the members ceases and the whole 
current of life flows Godward in an unobstructed 
channel. 



34 The Doctrine of Entire Sandification* 

CHAPTER VII. 
THE DUAL FORM OF RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 

(a) Indicated in creation. 

THE creation of man as a physical being and 
the endowment of his body with animal life 
and the communication of a living soul were two 
distinct acts of Divine power. a And the Lord 
God formed man out of the dust of the ground, 
and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, 
and man became a living soul." 

It was not until the human form had received 
its finishing touch and was complete in the eye of 
God that the Creator breathed into the pliant 
nostril the breath of life and communicated a 
living soul. By this second manifestation of the 
Divine power man received from his Creator an 
immortal essence, a spiritual substance capable of 
thought and speech, and fitted for fellowship with 
the Father. The formation of the body preceded 
the influx of life, and the combination of soul and 
body in one organism preceded thought and speech. 



The Dual Form of Religious Experience. 35 

Man was not evolved; he was created. In the 
process of development life, of necessity, precedes 
everything; life must precede, must exist as the 
essential condition of growth. But the infinite 
God can create first and infuse the life and endow- 
ments afterward. It is only the living plant or 
animal that can appropriate food and grow. And 
as Adam's body was made before life was given, 
it, of necessity, must have been a product of crea- 
tive power. 

This being God's method, as exemplified in 
creation, it is reasonable to suppose that in the 
redemptive process after the apostasy He would 
follow somewhat the same order. The inherent 
idea of redemption implies successive stages, and 
as man is a responsible being, we dare not assume 
that God will do everything for his personal re- 
covery from sin without his consent and co-opera- 
tion. The Holy Ghost finds the sinner alien from 
his Father's house; He enlightens his mind; He 
" convinces him of sin ;" He testifies to his pardon 
and gives him peace. Complete reconciliation and 
restoration are set before the mind as Divine pos- 
sibilities through the merit of Christ's death, but 
He does not compel their acceptance. 

Restoration to sonship places the individual in 



36 The Doctrine of Entire Sandification. 

such relation to God as that He may confer untold 
benefits upon him if he prove himself by un- 
swerving loyalty worthy to receive them, and if 
God would be just He cannot advance the adopted 
child to the more intimate relationships until he ex- 
press a desire for advancement and manifest a will- 
ingness to conform to the rules of the household. 

(b) The same principle is indicated in the law 
of God. 

As a moral agent man must be consulted, but 
if he w r ould receive any benefit he must consent. 
One party cannot make a covenant. If we con- 
cede the fact of accountability, we cannot ignore 
its logical correlate co-operation. 

There is no salvation by the law. If it were 
possible for every precept of the law to be kept 
inviolate from the earliest infancy, that perfect 
obedience could not remove the defilement entailed 
upon man by hereditary descent. The law forbids 
all sinful acts. It thunders its "Thou shalt not" 
continually in man's ears, but Christ comes with 
the compassionate and sympathetic aspect of sal- 
vation. He transforms and sublimates the moral 
nature, keeps and comforts the disciple. 

(c) The symbolism of the Bible supports this 
view. 



The Dual Form of Religious Experience. 37 

When Israel was delivered from the bondage 
and service of Egypt, there was one marvelous 
experience. The waves parted when the rod of 
Moses touched their yielding surface ; the proud 
waters retired and the emancipated nation passed 
through the sea to a life of liberty. This experi- 
ence was complete and was never repeated, but it 
was limited to the one aspect of deliverance. 

The rejoicing of Israel was great, but it was 
only the exultation of deliverance from a great 
calamity. " Then sang Moses and the children of 
Israel this song unto the Lord : I will sing unto 
the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously, the 
horse and his rider he hath thrown into the sea;" 
and Miriam, as she led the daughters of Israel 
with the timbrel, answered and said : "Sing ye to 
the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously, the 
horse and his rider he hath cast into the sea." 

Israel went out from the house of bondage with 
a great victory, but it only brought them into the 
wilderness; they had not even yet seen the land, 
much less come into possession of it. Their ex- 
perience at the Jordan was not like this. God 
divided the water for them; there was also the 
special preparation and the passing over, but there 
was no pursuing host. It was not a repetition of 



38 The Doctrine of Entire Sanetifieation. 

the scenes of the sea; it was not a deliverance 
from bondage, but an entrance upon the possession 
of a long-promised inheritance. During the sojourn 
in the wilderness Israel was not subject to the 
Pharaohs ; neither was he in possession of Canaan. 
Israel could not have become a great nation in the 
wilderness; the establishment of David's throne 
and the glory of Zion were contingent upon the 
possession and occupancy of the promised inherit- 
ance. These symbolic facts combine to prove it 
impossible, in the nature of the case, that a sinner 
should be converted, sanctified, filled and estab- 
lished by one Divine act. Nor is it possible that 
the same end should be reached by any conceivable 
method of growth. 

There were two distinct crises in the experience 
of Israel, — the deliverance from bondage and his 
establishment in the land of Canaan, his cove- 
nanted inheritance. And all this was, of necessity, 
prior to the growth and glory of David's kingdom. 
And if there is any significance in these facts, they 
symbolize the two epochs in Christian experi- 
ence, — the deliverance from the bondage and ser- 
vice of sin and the establishment of the converted 
soul in a state of perfect loyalty to God, where 
growth and progress and glorious manifestation 



The Dual Form of Religious Experience. 39 

are natural and continuous. But these two crises, 
of necessity, precede the glory and maturity of 
full-orbed Christian manhood. 

(d) Jesus teaches the same doctrine in His par- 
able of the prodigal son. 

When the wanderer found himself ready to 
perish amid the husks and swineherds, he resolved 
to return to his father's house. The first step was 
to return and seek a reconciliation. We cannot 
imagine this wayward son, this profligate debau- 
chee, at this stage of the proceedings, stipulating 
for a portion of the estate. The Great Teacher is 
careful to state the fact that he voluntarily sur- 
rendered his legal claim to sonship and sought 
only the place of a hired servant. But when he 
came in this spirit of humility, the father surprised 
him with perfect pardon and a complete restoration 
to his place in the family. The festivities were 
of the most elaborate character, joy and gladness 
filled every heart and illumined every face, but 
they celebrated only the wanderer's return, — " This 
my son is alive again." 

But the magnitude of the festivities imply the 
fullest confidence of the father in the son's loyal 
purpose to remain at home, and they indicate and 
foreshadow the glorious possibilities in the future 



40 The Doctrine of Entire Sanetifieation. 

career of the son, and we cannot avoid the conclu- 
sion that within a reasonably short period after 
the celebration of his return the question of the 
future course of the son, and his relation to the 
family and the business, would have to be ad- 
justed. 

The fidelity of the young man to his father's 
interest, or his own, could not have been shown by 
the zeal with which he entered into the hilarities of 
the feast. It could only be demonstrated by a 
perfect conformity to the family government. The 
change from the position of an outcast to one of 
sonship, from the degradation and want of the 
swineherds to the festive scenes of his father's 
house, was enough to overwhelm the most stoical 
nature with delight. 

The son was not then in a condition to deter- 
mine his future. Neither could he reasonably ex- 
pect his relation to the family to end with the 
celebration of his return. The fact of his recep- 
tion and forgiveness, and his restoration to his 
forfeited position in the family, placed him under 
obligations to reciprocate the father's love and 
demonstrate his regard for his paternal ancestor 
by entering as heartily into the business and 
social enterprises of the family as he did into the 



The Dual Form of Religious Experience. 41 

sumptuous feast, the mirth and music with which 
the family celebrated his return. 

In view of all the facts, we may naturally con- 
clude that after the exuberance of the father's joy 
had subsided, and he gave attention to the legiti- 
mate demands of business, the same paternal af- 
fection that caused him to receive and pardon the 
wanderer would manifest itself in planning and 
providing for the future success of the repentant 
profligate, and would naturally lead the father, in 
the benevolence of his heart, to suggest to the son 
the propriety of selecting and taking charge of 
some department of the estate. But can we im- 
agine the father's heartache if the recently-par- 
doned and feasted son should assume an air of 
arrogance, or of wounded pride, and say : a Oh, sir, 
I am not going into business. I did not presume 
you would be so exacting as to demand of me a 
return to business. I shall, after a little rest and 
recuperation, return to my riotous associations. I 
shall be glad to keep up the acquaintance of the 
family and return occasionally for a short visit, but 
I cannot think of the dull routine of a business 
life." 

It is true the parable closes abruptly in the 
midst of the festivities that celebrated his 



42 The Doctrine of Entire Sanctification. 

return, but it projects into the mind the conviction 
that unless the returning prodigal renewed his 
fidelity to his father's interests the relationship 
must cease. 

It is impossible to conceive of the future of this 
young man without a second crisis ; there would 
come to him a crucial period when he must choose 
between a return to his former habits and a life 
consecrated to some department of his father's 
business. We can not presume the father would 
entrust to him any large portion of his goods until 
he was well assured that the late wanderer would 
abandon all unlawful pursuits and abide with him 
on his estate. 



Same Doctrine is Taught in Scripture. 43 



CHAPTER VIII. 

THE SAME DOCTRINE IS TAUGHT IN THE GENERAL 
TENOR OF THE SCRIPTURE. 

THE dual form of expression is always present. 
" Forgiveness of sins " and the cleansing of 
" unrighteousness " indicate the twofold nature of 
salvation. Any effort to prove that holiness and 
regeneration are necessarily coetaneous is not only 
antagonistic to the standards of the Methodist 
Episcopal Church, but contrary to the plainest 
teachings of God's word. If the advocates of 
holiness should yield to the popular demand, and 
abandon what some are pleased to call " unim- 
portant terminology/' it would not result in the 
peace that follows victory. It would be inglorious 
defeat ; it would be disaster culminating in relig- 
ious chaos or in the eternal silence of spiritual 
death. 

On the assumption that God's word is ordinarily 
plain, so that any one of moderate ability and 
common scholarship can understand that part of 
it which relates to his own salvation, it appears 



44 The Doctrine of Entire Sandification. 

more difficult to misapprehend than to perceive the 
distinction which God makes between these two 
processes of salvation. 

"Whatever may be the nature of the difficulties 
in the way, it is of vital importance that the dis- 
tinction and the difference be clearly perceived by 
all who attempt to teach in public or private. 

It is only a little way on either side from the 
direct line of truth to the Egyptian night of fatal 
error ; half-truths in religion, like half-truths in 
philosophy, are pregnant with danger. All heresy 
and all fanaticism touch at some point, on one side 
or the other, some vital truth in the Christian 
system. Sin exists in a dual form ; it has a two- 
fold manifestation, — transgression and depravity or 
uncleanness. In our personal experience as sin- 
ners, we are equally conscious of guilt and pollu- 
tion. Transgression and its consequent condem- 
nation are removed by a Divine process which 
God designates forgiveness; this change affects man 
in his relation to the law involved in his offense. 
Pollution pertains to the nature or quality of a 
substance; it is that subtle thing which inheres in 
a fallen soul, affecting its moral quality. The 
process by which God removes this impurity from 
the soul is not the same that He has appointed for 



Same Doctrine is Taught in Scripture. 45 

the removal of his guilt ; neither does God ever call 
it by the same name. The processes are not the 
same ; the operations and the experiences are entirely 
different. We must therefore be unable to discern 
anything about the one, or we are able to cognize 
the other. 

If a sinner can be conscious of the peace and life 
which come into the soul when God pardons his 
transgressions and adopts him into the Divine 
family, a believer can be conscious of the purity he 
experiences when he is wholly sanctified. 

There is as much difference between the pro- 
cesses through which the soul passes in its transi- 
tion from a state of rebellion to one of sonship, 
and from a state of conscious uncleanness to one of 
purity, as there is between those two moral condi- 
tions, and the difference is clearly indicated to the 
mind by the terms used in the word of God to 
express these Divine operations. In Luke xxiv. 
47, Jesus said to the disciples, " And that repent- 
ance and remission (aphesis) of sins should be 
preached in His name ; " and the apostle, in his 
epistle to the Ephesians, 1st chapter, 7th verse, says : 
" In whom we have redemption in His blood, the 
forgiveness (aphesis) of sins." 

Matthew xix. 28, Jesus says : " That ye which 



46 The Doctrine of Entire Sanctification. 

have followed me in the regeneration (palingene- 
sia) when the Son of man shall sit in the throne of 
His glory ye shall sit on twelve thrones judging 
the twelve tribes of Israel." In the epistle to 
Titus iii. 5, it reads, " But according to His mercy 
He saved us by the washing of regeneration (palin- 
genesia) and the renewing of the Holy Ghost." 
In Ephesians v. 26, we find a record of the clean- 
sing process : " That He might sanctify (hagiazo) 
and cleanse with the washing of water by the 
word." 

First Thess. v. 23, " And the very God of peace 
sanctify (hagiazo) you wholly." 

The most casual observer with only a limited 
education cannot fail to notice with what exact- 
ness God's word distinguishes between these differ- 
ent processes of salvation, and so clearly does he 
delineate these various differences that it requires 
greater effort to obscure or confound them than is 
necessary to accept them in their broadest and 
most comprehensive sense. 



Holiness Conditional. 47 



CHAPTER IX. 
HOLINESS CONDITIONAL. 

ACCORDING to the principles of moral gov- 
ernment, as developed in the preceding chap- 
ters, holiness is conditioned upon man's return to a 
state of perfect loyalty to God. Holiness is not a 
momentary experience of ecstatic fellowship with 
God, filling the soul at some particular period and 
incapable of extension, but a continuous state of 
purity, contingent upon man's fidelity to the Lord 
Jesus Christ. The assumption that holiness is in- 
compatible with this present life, and that this 
earthly career terminates so soon as the heart is 
wholly sanctified, is a fatal delusion. 

Holiness not being a natural quality of the 
soul, but derived from God, is wrought in man by 
the Holy Ghost, but wrought in response to man's 
earnest desire, and upon the condition of his 
unqualified submission to the Divine order. Heart 
purity is not a natural sequent of regeneration, 
but occurs subsequent to that experience. The 
fact that man's original state was one of accounta- 



48 The Doctrine of Entire Sanctijication. 

bility to law implies responsibility under the gra- 
cious provisions of the gospel system. 

Although man is not born in a state of holiness, 
neither is he born in a condition of penal bondage 
to sin. He is " born unholy and unclean," but he 
comes into existence beneath the shadow of his 
Saviour's cross. He is born with sinful proclivi- 
ties, but he is born in a state of initial salvation ; 
born in a world where the Holy Ghost has come 
to abide to the end of time. He is born with sinful 
surroundings, but in a state of gracious probation. 
Born where sin has inaugurated a curse, but in 
a world where, " though sin abounds, grace doth 
much more abound." 

We accept the doctrine of the church, that by 
nature man is totally depraved; but no one is born 
in a state of nature to the exclusion of all the 
gracious agencies of the gospel. The atonement of 
the Lord Jesus Christ is not a natural phenomenon ; 
it is not a product of natural law, not one stage in 
a series of developments. It is not a supernat- 
ural fact coming to man's aid after he is born. As 
a descendant of Adam, man comes upon the stage 
of life under the gracious provisions of a remedial 
system. " Christ is the true light which lighteth 
every man that cometh into the world," and the 



Holiness Conditional. 49 

light of His salvation falls upon the pre-natal path- 
way of every child of Adam. 

If it were possible for the earth to remain in its 
orbit and the sun be extinguished, not one thing of 
all the varied forms of existence could survive the 
change. Nothing could creep on its surface or fly 
through the air above it. No sound of insect or 
animal would disturb the universal silence. Total 
darkness would enwrap the earth from the equator 
to the poles. 

It would not be a parched cinder under the eye 
of a blazing sun, but a congealed mass of black 
desolation. The earth is " cursed for man's sake/' 
and winter winds howl in their relentless fury and 
pile the whirling snowflakes into impassable drifts; 
but the sun is stronger than the " ice king " and 
vegetable life is not extinct ; it is only paralyzed, 
and will respond to the rays of light and heat, and 
come forth with new vigor, and while the sun keeps 
his place, seed-time and harvest shall never fail. 

And it is not until every ray of the sun of right- 
eousness is excluded from the human soul that 
man reaches his natural state of total depravity. 

When no one of the gospel agents finds its way 
to the human heart, the fruits of sin mature at 
once ; but the entire race of man lives within reach 
4 



50 The Doctrine of Entire Sanctification. 

of the vitalizing influence of the gospel. The sun 
of righteousness, full-orbed, has arisen on the des- 
olations of sin. He sends his rays upon all ; His 
light, and life, and warmth visit all lands. The 
rock of salvation has been smitten, and the limpid 
stream flows forth, and its healing waters lave all 
shores, and ripple melodiously and sing of life and 
purity at the feet of every weary wanderer upon 
the desert wastes of sin. 

" Its streams the whole creation reach, 
So plenteous is the store, 
Enough for all, enough for each, 
Enough forever more." 

But as God did not drive man from His paternal 
arms, He will not compel his return. God comes 
to the lost race in a marvelous manifestation of 
mercy. He proclaims a universal amnesty on the 
condition of man's return to his forfeited alle- 
giance. As man had power to obey given him 
by the Father so long as he believed in the 
Father's word while in his Edenic state, so has 
he now power given him of God, through faith in 
Jesus Christ, to keep the law of obedience in his 
second probation. His standing was conditional 
then ; it could not be otherwise now. Man was so 
constituted at the first; he must remain so. 



Holiness Conditional. 51 

His relative position changes, his surround- 
ings change; but the fundamental principles 
of the Divine government remain the same 
forever. And as man was created with the capa- 
city for fellowship, and enjoyed free access to his 
Father in his unfallen state, in his redeemed state 
he must come into the world w T ith no legal bar- 
riers between him and the Father, else he is not 
redeemed. A remedial system by redemptive 
agencies implies unobstructed access to God, and a 
purchased right to all the Father has. Man is 
born where belief is possible by the aid of the 
Holy Ghost — born on believing ground — the en- 
abling act being the atonement and not a subse- 
quent operation of the Holy Ghost. 

"The Holy Ghost which proceedeth from the 
Father and the Son " came to the world, not to 
add to the provisions of the atonement; that was 
complete at the first. "The blood was sprinkled" 
before the Spirit could leave the throne. The mis- 
sion of the Spirit is " to convince," " to enlighten," 
"to aid," to lead all to God and testify to their 
acceptance. He came to reveal Jesus in all and 
make the Father known to all in the experience of 
full salvation ; but all of this is conditioned on 
man's acceptance. 



52 The Doctrine of Entire Sanetijieation. 
CHAPTER X. 

FAITH THE CONDITION OF HOLINESS. 

REPENTANCE and obedience are concomi- 
tants of faith, but faith is the primary and 
only condition of salvation. We not only enter 
upon the way of salvation by faith, but we 
abide in Him by faith ; and salvation in all 
its stages as a personal experience is by faith. 
God dwells in us when Ave have faith in Him. 
In offering salvation to a sinful race God must act 
in harmony with His Divine perfections. He can- 
not do that which it would be unlawful for any 
other being to do. He cannot require of His 
children a broader charity, a more exact standard 
of justice, than He exercises toward all. As 
" God is no respecter of persons," He must of 
necessity place his salvation before the world on 
such a basis as that it shall be equally applicable 
to all, and as easily apprehended by one as by 
another ; but, above all, if it is not arbitrarily be- 
stowed, but conditional, by the very nature of 
things the condition must be such that it will be 



Faith the Condition of Holiness. 53 

equally possible of fulfillment by all men. It 
must be such that no combination of circumstances 
can embarrass the fulfillment of the conditions on 
the human side or hinder the accomplishment of 
this salvation on the Divine side. The condition 
must be of such a nature that no injustice or 
partiality can inhere — there cannot be favoritism 
with a just God. The environments of the sub- 
ject must be of that nature that at all times and in 
all ages and under all contingencies, no possible 
barrier can interpose between a reconciled God 
and His penitent child. As salvation is a cove- 
nant work, it must be possible as an instantaneous 
experience, whenever the candidate submits to the 
Divine requirement. God has carefully guarded 
the way of salvation at every point. He leaves 
no room anywhere for the delusion that holiness 
is a matter of churchly culture or a legitimate 
product of ecclesiasticism. It is secured by a 
simple act of trust on the human side — trust spe- 
cific, definite and continuous, from its inception to 
its culmination in glory. On the Divine side it is 
accomplished by an effort of omnipotence — it is 
wrought by the Holy Ghost. 

If we concede the existence of sin we cannot 
conceive of any other mode of deliverance from 



54 The Doctrine of Entire Sanetifieation. 

its power and penalty. Man may wade through 
the labyrinths of science, he may traverse the 
whole realm of speculation, he may grope in the 
Egyptian night of unbelief or follow the deceitful 
light of reason along her tortuous pathway, but 
he cannot " by searching find out God." Still 
there comes the sad cry, " Who shall show us the 
Father?" After Plato had explored the w T hole 
realm of philosophy he said, " We must wait until 
some one comes from God who can show us the 
way to the Father." To this universal longing 
of humanity the gospel responds: "The word 
is nigh thee, even in thy mouth and in thy 
heart; that is the word of faith which we 
preach. That if thou shalt confess with thy 
mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine 
heart that God raised Him from the dead, thou 
shalt be saved, for with the heart man believeth 
unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession 
is made unto salvation." 

The Greek word rendered heart is Jcardia, which 
signifies the inner nature, the will, the life organ 
of the soul. It is that function of the soul that 
corresponds to the physical heart. In the exer- 
cise of faith, in this complete surrender to God, 
the will acts without compulsion. 



Faith the Condition of Holiness. 55 

There is more implied in this than a theory; 
there is a submission of the affections and the will 
to the law of God. and the confidence of the soul 
that God does accept, purify and possess the heart. 

In this struggle for the Divine fellowship there 
is no substitute for faith. God demands the con- 
fidence of the individual. He will not dwell in a 
heart that entertains doubt or suspicions His in- 
tegrity. He loves His children, and nothing less 
than the perfect love of His children will satisfy 
the Divine heart. Learning, and wealth, and 
power are helpless at this point. Science cannot 
know a personal God : therefore it can neither re- 
veal Him nor retain Him. Science has to do with 
law, but God has not made a knowledge of science 
the condition of His coming or fellowship. 

A compassionate God is not discovered in the 
multiplication table, nor in the problems of Eu- 
clid. The astronomer walking among the constel- 
lations, the artist in his studio, or the naturalist 
communing with flowers or forests are not neces- 
sarily Christians. Man may know all about the 
rocks, and be able to name each separate formation 
and tell the exact age of each strata, and his 
heart be as unfeeling as the granite. He may 
understand the currents and courses of the wind, 



56 The Doctrine of Entire Sanctification. 

be able to register the velocity of its motion and 
the degree of its humidity, and his own soul be 
the sport of passions as violent as the boreas and 
as ungovernable as a cyclone. He may be able to 
enumerate all the elements and rule them at plea- 
sure, and at the same time unable to control his 
own spirit. He may know how to tame the thunder- 
bolt or control its power, but helpless to avert the 
wrath of an offended God. He may know all 
about the stars and be able to trace them around 
their common centres, or follow the mighty comet 
in its erratic course through space, and his own life 
may be as the meteor which blazes a moment and 
goes out in eternal night. But faith brings him 
into fellowship with the " Father and with His 
Son, Jesus Christ," and walking in this Divine re- 
lationship, "The blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, 
cleanseth him from all sin." 



Faith not the Agent of Salvation. 57 



CHAPTEE XI. 
FAITH XOT THE AGENT OF SALVATION. 

OXE of the most common errors in regard to 
faith is the assumption that faith is the agent 
of our salvation, that it is some mysterious thing 
coming from God and possessing inherent power. 
This class of teachers deify faith. In their minds 
it takes the place of the Holy Ghost ; they con- 
tinually speak of the power of faith, and the mind 
of the listener is confused or his thought diverted 
from the true idea of faith, both as to its nature 
and relation to human salvation. 

It is important that we discriminate carefully, 
for if the " blind lead the blind both will fall into 
the ditch." If faith is the agent that transforms 
and saves the soul, and salvation is conditional, no 
one can secure the agent until the conditions are 
complied with. If faith is a result of salvation, 
or if it is predicated on obedience, there must be 
somewhere a specific condition of faith ; if faith is 
a gift bestowed before or after conversion, uncon- 
ditionally, no man is responsible for his present 



58 The Doctrine of Entire Sanctifieation. 

unsaved condition. If man is a moral agent he is 
capable, under the Divine government, of perceiv- 
ing his relations to the truths of revelation, and is 
responsible for the rejection of the gospel. If 
faith is the incomprehensible agent that saves 
man, or if it is a gift or the reward of obedience, 
it cannot be the primary condition of salvation. 

Assuming that faith is the primary condition of 
salvation, we formulate the argument in this way : 
(1) Man is not saved by the operation of faith as 
the agent of his salvation, but he is saved by a 
specific act of God, put forth in answer to, or be- 
cause of, his faith, as when the woman pressed her 
way through the company and touched the hem 
of the Saviour's garment " virtue went out of Him/ 7 
and healed her malady. This healing is in fulfill- 
ment of the Divine promise, " He that belie veth 
shall be saved" "For by grace are ye saved," 
and your salvation is not wrought by faith ; " it is 
the gift of God." (2) Faith is not a secondary 
matter, but as the condition of salvation is first, it 
precedes all. "Without faith it is impossible to 
please Him, for he that cometh to God must be- 
lieve that He is." (3) Faith is not a result of 
obedience, but produces obedience. Penitence and 
loyalty are inseparable from genuine faith. "By 



Faith not the Agent of Salvation. 59 

faith, Abraham, when he was called to go out into 
a place, which he should after receive for an in- 
heritance, obeyed, and he went out, not knowing 
whither he went." The faith, the confidence 
Abraham had in God enabled him to undertake 
and pursue the perilous journey; he trusted a per- 
sonal God, that He would fulfill His covenant 
promise : " And his faith was counted to him for 
righteousness." (4) Faith procures the removal 
of man's otherwise fatal condemnation. The be- 
lieving soul comes into such relations to God that 
He, by His Divine authority, removes his guilt 
and releases him from its consequent condemna- 
tion. "He that believeth on Him is not con- 
demned, but he that believeth not is con- 
demned already, because he hath not believed on 
the name of the only begotten Son of God." "Be- 
loved, if our heart condemn us not, then have we 
confidence toward God." These texts are sufficient 
to prove that faith is the sole condition on which 
God removes the guilt and delivers the soul from 
its consequent condemnation. When the question 
was propounded to the Apostle John, " How may I 
know that I am in favor with God?" " How can I 
know at all times that I am believing on the 
Lord? What is the infallible result of genuine 



60 The Doctrine of Entire Sandification. 

faith?" John replied, "I will give you a test that 
will never deceive you. No man who truly 
believes in Jesus is under condemnation. There- 
fore, beloved, if your heart condemn you not, 
then have you confidence toward God." Thus 
we perceive that faith is not the agent of our sal- 
vation, nor a result of obedience, but it is the 
primary condition of salvation, and is predicated 
on evidence, the enabling act being the atone- 
ment of Jesus Christ, which procures the fulness 
of the Holy Spirit, and puts every person on 
" believing ground." 



The Nature of Faith. 61 



CHAPTER XII. 

THE NATURE OF FAITH. 

WHAT is faith ? When and how does faith be- 
gin ? What relation does it sustain to the 
salvation of men ? are questions of vital interest to 
all. When the disciples desired of Jesus to know 
what they might do for God, He said unto them, 
" This is the work of God that ye believe on Him 
whom He hath sent," and in the epistle to the 
Hebrews the Apostle says: "But without faith it 
is impossible to please Him, for he that cometh to 
God must believe that He is, and that He is a 
rewarder of them that diligently seek him." 

There are two words in the apostolic declaration 
that constitute the pivotal point of this inquiry, 
words which are vital in their relation to saint 
and sinner, — "faith" and "believe." These two 
words are the key to all the Bible says on the sub- 
ject of salvation, or of power to work for God. 
The Bible speaks of all unbelief as sin. "What- 
soever is not of faith is sin." Every act which 
does not proceed from faith in God is displeasing 



62 The Doctrine of Entire Sanctijication. 

to Him. Disbelief is not only sin, but it is the 
fruitful source of all sin. Every transgression and 
disobedience originates in unbelief. So long as 
Eve believed the word of God she was secure, 
the Divine presence filled her heart and environed 
her about, obedience was her highest pleasure; 
but the moment she entertained a doubt of her 
Father's goodness and veracity, Satan filled her 
with wicked thoughts. Suggestions of encroach- 
ment upon her personal liberty swelled and surged 
through her heart, and so soon as she transferred 
her confidence to the tempter, God withdrew from 
her heart and Satan filled her with rebellion, and an 
overt act of crime was the natural result. Unbelief 
changed the relation of the parties, blighted every 
flower in Eden, struck down the tree of life, 
turned the garden of delights into a thunder- 
scathed desert, with the curse of God " resting 
upon its seared bosom. " Faith in God, through 
Jesus Christ, restores man to his rightful relations, 
and thus brings peace to his troubled and dissatis- 
fied nature. 

The tendency to misplace faith in the Christian 
system — to subordinate it to other things — is 
manifest everywhere, and is fraught with mischief. 
Paul makes two plain, unequivocal declarations : 



The Nature of Faith. 63 

(1) That we cannot please God except we have 
faith ; (2) That no man can come to God except 
"he believe that He is." Having faith in God 
and believing in God signify the same thing ; they 
indicate the same act, or rather they are terms 
that express the same moral condition, for faith 
implies a state or attitude of the soul, as much as 
it does an act of the will. 

The two Greek words rendered faith and believe 
occur in the New Testament over five hundred 
times. Pistuo is the verbal root, and expresses 
action ; it occurs two hundred and fifty -six times in 
the New Testament, where it is translated believe; 
it signifies an act of the creature, but is never pred- 
icated of God. The other form of the Greek 
text is pistis, translated faith ; it occurs two hun- 
dred and forty-seven times in the New Testament, 
where its only legitimate meaning is "an act of 
trust performed by the creature." The perfect 
idea embraced in these two words formulates itself 
in the mind as that act of the creature by which 
the will subordinates the affections, actions and 
life to his Creator. It implies the surrender of 
the whole man in the fullest sense to his Redeemer, 
for His use and glory. 

Faith is not always perfect at once ; it always 



64 The Doctrine of Entire Sanctification. 

exists as a unit, but in various degrees of develop- 
ment. Jesus said to His disciples : " Oh ye of 
little faith." Weak, strong and perfect are terms 
that indicate the quality of faith. Perfect faith 
has no admixture of doubt; it implies the fullest 
confidence in God's character, as revealed in the 
Scriptures, and the most unswerving dependence 
upon His specific promises. The most fatal error 
in regard to faith is the assumption that it is a 
Divine gift, that it is some indefinable influence, 
mysteriously infused into the soul; the penitent 
struggles and waits and wonders, but does not 
advance. The professor looks at his spiritual 
moods, tries to analyze his emotions and becomes 
anxious and discouraged because God does not 
give him faith. He mourns over his leanness and 
dies of starvation in the midst of plenty because 
he insists upon reversing the Divine order of sal- 
vation. We refuse to accept the fact that having 
faith in God and believing on His promise is the 
same act expressed in two different forms. 

Many teachers confuse their hearers by assum- 
ing that there are many kinds of faith, such as 
"historic faith/' "head faith/' "heart faith," and 
many other forms of faith. They quote the 
Apostle James in support of their theory that 



The Nature of Faith. 65 

having faith and believing God are not the same. 
" Ye believe in one God : ye do well : the devils 
also believe and tremble." A little attention to 
the scope of the apostle's thought will obviate all 
difficulty at this point. It is not the act of be- 
lieving that saves the soul ; it is not the process of 
believing that brings salvation. 

It is the fact which God requires us to believe 
that makes the difference ; hence the first step in 
faith, is an act of obedience. The belief of any 
proposition fixes our relation toward all that is in- 
volved in the proposition. The old sophism of 
"head faith" and "heart faith" dissolves at the 
first touch of logic. 

The assumption that God gave the devils an 
intellectual faith, and withheld from them a heart 
faith in order that they might not trust and be 
saved, is out of harmony with the intelligence of 
this age. 

The fallacy of the whole procedure is in the 
false premise, viz. : " That the fallen angels have 
an equal interest in the gospel with the children 
of men." The gospel of Jesus Christ was not 
prepared for them — they could not believe the 
gospel. They were the seducers of the race and 
were already under sentence of condemnation. 
5 



66 The Doctrine of Entire Sanctification. 

"They were reserved under chains of darkness 
unto the judgment of the great day ." Our Saviour 
" took not on Him the nature of angels, but the 
seed of Abraham." Those angels do not sustain 
such relation to Jesus Christ as to make it possible 
for Him to save them. They know that for them 
no vicarious altar smoked with sacrificial blood, 
no Saviour stretched out a nailed hand in pleading 
agony for them, for them no Holy Ghost made 
unutterable intercession. Not one among all those 
fallen spirits entertained any such conviction as 
that Jesus could save them. In this Scripture the 
apostle is answering the assumption of the Jews 
that they were the children of Abraham. 

When James presented the divinity of Jesus 
Christ and urged His claim to the Messiahship, the 
Jews answered with derision, "We believe in one 
God, the God of our father, Abraham-, but as 
for this Jesus of Nazareth, whom ye call God, we 
wot not who He is." James replies with warmth, 
in one of the finest exhibitions of forensic skill in 
the literature of the world, " Ye believe in one 
God ; ye do well ; but so long as ye reject the only 
name through which you can come to the Father, 
you are in the same condition as the devils who 
believe in one God, but for whom no Saviour 






The Nature of Faith. 67 

was ever prepared, and to whom no gospel of sal- 
vation was ever preached." But let us examine the 
philology of the word. Faith is a compound of 
two ideas — acceptance and trust — and is a personal 
act or habit of the creature. 

There are two aspects of this act : 

(1) " The exercise of man's natural gifts on 
natural evidence ;" (2) " The exercise of his na- 
tural gifts under the influence and direction of the 
Holy Ghost with regard to spiritual or Divine 
things." Christian faith always embraces the per- 
sonality and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. The 
faith that secures the salvation of the individual 
has two elements : (1) " The spiritual apprehen- 
sion of the invisible and eternal ;" (2) " Trust in 
Christ in all His offices as a personal Saviour." 
This last element is the sole condition of salvation 
and of successful prayer and of spiritual power 
and progress. 

If we concede the fact of accountability, we 
must assume that the faith faculty inheres in man, 
and is under the control of his will, and that faith 
is produced by evidence and is not communicated 
as a gift ; for if there is no faith in man until it 
is given him, the salvation of the soul and the 
fictitious condition on which it is said to be be- 



68 The Doctrine of Entire Sanctifieation. 

stowed are both arbitrarily shut up in the hands of 
a sovereign. Furthermore, according to the prin- 
ciples of psychology, all knowledge is predicated 
on faith ; raan apprehends all reality outside of 
himself through faith alone, a faith begotten in 
him of the evidence presented to his mind, de- 
monstrating that the faith-faculty is a constitu- 
tional quality of manhood,, and the foundation for 
the existence of faith is laid in the primary laws 
of thought, and revealed in the self-consciousness 
of each separate individual in the human family. 

We formulate it in this manner : Faith is that 
act of the mind by which, after it has perceived 
and admitted the evidence, it accepts freely the fact 
established by the testimony. There is a differ- 
ence between the enabling act of God, whereby, 
through the enlightening influence of the Holy 
Ghost, man becomes conscious that he is a sinner, 
and the act of his own, by which he ceases to sin 
and accepts the Lord Jesus as his Saviour. It is 
one thing to feel his own needs and apprehend the 
source of supply in Christ ; but it is quite a dif- 
ferent thing to surrender all to Christ and accept 
Christ for all. 

But if the atonement placed man on the basis 
of possible salvation, the ability to comply with 



The Nature of Faith. 69 

the gracious conditions of that salvation inhere in 
man as a natural endowment, he being released 
from legal embargo by the atonement of Christ. 
From the preceding facts we perceive that the ex- 
ercise of faith is a voluntary act which specifically 
implies to trust. 

God commands us to believe His word. He 
asks us for our confidence, and accompanies His 
command with the promise that if we will put our 
trust in Him and submit to His authority, He will 
reciprocate our love and give us His salvation. 
The marvelous results that follow faith are not 
wrought by faith. The upheaval of trees and the 
overturning of mountains is not man's work, — 
that is God's part of the engagement. 

It is man's work to believe ; it is God's work 
to fulfill His own promises. It is the office of 
faith to connect man with the source of all power. 
Through faith, the volitions of man set the power 
of God in motion ; the Holy Ghost obeys the be- 
hest of faith, and He may operate by man, or in- 
dependent of human agencies. But we must not 
confound faith with imagination. They are not 
similar. Imagination is that faculty of the soul 
by which man reproduces from memory, or by 
the aid of conception builds and decorates, con- 



70 The Doctrine of Entire Sanctification. 

structs or remodels at pleasure. Imagination is a 
builder. Faith is a receiver. Faith is an open 
channel of communication between the soul and 
the throne of God. Faith neither adds to nor 
diminishes from the written word, but abides in 
the promise. Faith never stipulates. Faith sees 
the lacerated hands of Jesus, beholds the thorn- 
scars on His brow, puts its hand in His open side, 
and, looking up into the face of a reconciled 
Father, trusts. 

When the disciples prayed the Saviour to " in- 
crease their faith," He rebuked them by the state- 
ment, " If ye had faith as a grain of mustard seed." 
Nothing is said of size or shape, but " as " possessing 
the nature and quality of a mustard seed, which has 
an organized tree in its tiny shell, has life in itself, 
possesses the power to attach itself to the earth as 
soon as it is cast into the ground, and, pushing its 
roots downward, lifts itself toward the sun, and, 
holding on to its position, which is the real secret 
of its success, constantly stretches out its boughs 
and holds up its leafy cups to catch the sunshine 
and the showers, appropriating material from the 
earth and from the air, and soon becomes a massive 
shrub, giving shelter to insect and bird. It does 
not complain that the soil is sterile or that the 



The Nature of Faith. 71 

season is dry, but working away in real earnest, by 
the chemical power of light, transmutes every 
thing it can reach in the earth or in the air into its 
own organism. 

By this parable the Saviour teaches the church 
that whosoever will constantly abide in the promise 
of purity and power in sunshine and in storm, 
and not swerve from the path of duty, shall over- 
turn mountains of opposition from their rocky 
beds and pluck up trees of . difficulty and hurl 
them defiantly into the sea. Let your faith be as 
definite in its acceptance of the atonement, and as 
positive in the reception of its provisions, as the 
mustard seed is in its attachments to the earth, and 
as devoted to God as the mustard plant is to the 
sun, and one week will not pass till your barren 
and desolate soul will bud and bloom like the rose 
and be as fragrant of good works as a garden of 
spices. 



72 The Doctrine of Entire Sanctification. 



CHAPTER XIII. 
FAITH THE ACT OF MAN BASED ON EVIDENCE. 

THERE is but one process by which the mind 
can be convinced of a fact, that is by evidence. 
The Holy Ghost commanded John to collect from 
the life of Jesus such significant facts as would 
establish His Christhood, and collate and record 
them for the world, and upon this array of testi- 
mony God demands the faith of all men. 

There are two theological systems that never 
can be harmonized ; their modes of thought are 
essentially different because the major premise in 
each is different from the other ; and the methods 
of procedure among the respective adherents of 
each system are as diverse as the major premise 
in the logical statement. The phases of religious 
experience and the activities that characterize in- 
dividual Christians are legitimate sequents of 
their primary relations to fundamental truth. One 
system states all its propositions on the basis of 
moral freedom, the other proceeds upon the as- 
sumption that there are no contingencies. 



Faith the Act of Man Based on Evidence. 73 

Church economy, church relations and the 
general utterances of the pulpit are of but little 
force; they are purely extraneous influences ; they 
modify, but do not control character. The Chris- 
tian life in itself and in its relation to the world 
is moulded by the individual beliefs. It is the 
irrevocable law of God that faith shapes the char- 
acter. The secret belief of the heart determines 
all the relations of the individual to God, and to 
every other being in the universe. Faith is the ex- 
pression of the souPs attitude toward God ; it is, 
therefore, primary, and precedes all manifestations. 

The opposite view subordinates faith, makes it 
a resultant of that which precedes it, declares 
that " Faith is the first fruit of a regenerated 
heart." This system assumes that " sin is really the 
cause of all unbelief, and it is on this account that 
unbelief is always treated in the Bible as a crime 
and is punishable. Could any skeptic be thor- 
oughly emptied of sin, he would at once rise into 
faith as a balloon springs aloft when all its weights 
are cast out." Entertaining this view, men pray 
for faith and for the removal of their unbelief and 
their doubts, and plead as an excuse for their inac- 
tivity that they have not received enough faith. 
When the cry " It is finished" cleft the lurid air 



74 The Doctrine of Entire Sanetijieation. 

of Calvary, every legal barrier to the complete 
salvation of man was taken away and the entire 
race put on the basis of initial salvation. And as 
Adam was capable of believing God and obeying 
Him in His Edenic state, so also was he and all 
his descendants, through the grace of God, as 
manifested in Jesus Christ, capable of obeying the 
Divine law, and every child which dies before dis- 
belief causes it to rebel against God is saved by 
virtue of the atonement. 

The fact that man is responsible for his unbe- 
lief implies that he is on believing ground, and 
that unbelief is not only sin, but the fruitful source 
of all sin. 

There cannot be either regeneration or holiness 
of heart until unbelief is voluntarily surrendered. 
As the ability to disbelieve and the ability to ex- 
ercise faith must be equal in every accountable 
being, the ability to do right equal to the ability 
to do wrong, and the power of choice lodged in 
the will, man may reject the offer of life and perish 
in his sins. 

As salvation is a covenant work, the relation of 
the contracting parties, the attitude of each to the 
other, must be considered. God is a Sovereign 
Ruler; man is a rebel against His authority. God 



Faith the Act of 3Ian Based on Evidence. 75 

is placated by the death of His Son, and has pro- 
claimed a universal amnesty on the condition that 
the rebellious party shall return to his perfect 
allegiance. God has made the overture, has given 
all the necessary helps, every barrier is removed. 
The fatlings are prepared and the beneficent 
Father only awaits the return of the wanderers in 
order that the festivities may commence. After 
Jesus was risen from the grave, He carefully led 
the disciples to perceive the evidences that sup- 
ported His resurrection. 

On the evening of the first dav after He was 
risen, Jesus came where the disciples were as- 
sembled, the doors being shut ; He stood in the 
midst and said, " Peace be unto you." Then " He 
shewed unto them His hands and His side." 

Jesus, addressing their understanding, would 
convince them by legitimate evidence rather than 
by force. But Thomas was not with them, and 
when they saw Him, they said, " \Te have seen 
the Lord. He is risen. " Thomas said, " Except 
I shall see in His hands the prints of the nails 
and thrust my hand into His side, I will not be- 
lieve." Thomas did not ask for any more evi- 
dence or any different testimony from that which 
Jesus had given to the other disciples. He did 



7G The Doctrine of Entire Sandifieation. 

nothing to incur the odious epithet, " The doubter," 
that thoughtless professors, in all ages, have be- 
stowed upon him. It was the duty of the inquir- 
ing disciple to ask for such evidence as would sat- 
isfy him that the crucified Jesus was risen from 
the dead, 

Thomas knew that the disciples might be mis- 
taken and he desired to know the whole truth for 
himself. Jesus did not rebuke him, but sought 
His opportunity, and when again they were as- 
sembled, Thomas being with them, Jesus came and 
stood in the midst, and said " Peace be unto you." 
Then, addressing Himself to the inquiring dis- 
ciple, He said, " Thomas, reach hither thy finger 
and behold My hands and reach hither thy hand 
and behold My side, and be not faithless but be- 
lieving." This was prior to the Pentecost and 
preparatory to that event, and on the presentation 
of this evidence, Thomas exclaimed, " My Lord 
and my God." And from that time onward no 
doubt ever existed in the mind of Thomas, not 
even a ghost of a doubt haunted the brilliant 
pathway of the disciple, and it is an unholy and 
wicked reproach upon the character of a dead 
man to parade Thomas before the world as the 
" Plumed Knight of the doubting legion." 



Faith the Act of Man Based on Evidence. 77 

Every one has a right to claim legitimate evi- 
dence as the basis of his faith, but he is also under 
obligation to accept sufficient evidence and believe ; 
and it is for the rejection of this God-givta evi- 
dence that he is guilty before the law. That this 
is the correct interpretation of this historic fact is 
evident from apostolic statement. "And many 
other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of His 
disciples which are not written in this book. But 
these are written that ye might believe that Jesus is 
the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing ye 
might have life through His name." 

This is God's method of procedure with men, 
and if the church would abandon its erroneous 
notions and receive the recorded evidence that 
Jesus is the Christ, and believing this, receive Him 
in all His offices and trust Him without a doubt, 
the Holy Ghost would then come in power and 
those marvelous supernatural manifestations, in 
the form of religious experiences, would become 
the admiration and attraction of a perishing 
world. 



78 The Doctrine of Entire Sanctification. 



CHAPTER XIY. 

PRAYER AS A FACTOR IN THE SALVATION OF 
MEN. 

(a) The philosophy of prayer. 

THE question as to how God answers prayer, or 
whether bona fide answers to prayer are pos- 
sible, has given rise to a vigorous, though not 
always sweet nor reasonable, discussion of the 
philosophy of prayer during the last decade. 

Recently the Christian world was first startled, 
then partially paralyzed, by the promulgation of 
Professor TyndaPs prayer test. At first the an- 
nouncement elicited a vehement denial of the 
claims of science, then the wave receded, and for 
a season the confidence of the church in the ability 
of God to answer specific prayer seemed to be 
shaken. But the church soon adjusted herself to 
the issue, and began to seek in earnest for the true 
philosophy of prayer. The challenge has been 
turned to good account, and has led to a correct 
interpretation of those texts referring to prayer 



Prayer as a Factor in the Salvation of Men. 79 

and revealed to us the true method of the Divine 
procedure, and inspired us with a degree of con- 
fidence we did not formerly possess. 

It is due Professor Tyndal to remember that he 
did not misrepresent the Creeds. His declaration 
was that if it were true that "God preordained 
everything by the necessity of His own being, 
answers to prayer were impossible in the nature of 
things." Faith and prayer are both impossible in 
a system of moral government where every event 
is the result of pre-existing cause. Prayer is 
based on the fact that there are alternatives pre- 
sented to the petitioner. It implies the possible 
existence of an indefinite number of possibilities, 
any one of which and only one of which may be 
determined into a fact. As faith and prayer are 
both voluntary actions, fatalism and prayer are in- 
compatible and cannot be harmonious parts of the 
same moral system. 

Prayer is a transaction that is only possible be- 
tween two volitional beings. Therefore, if we 
assume that God directs every event by a stern de- 
cree of law that has no alternative, we must also 
admit that Christians and materialists occupy the 
same platform, and it becomes apparent, even to the 
thoughtless, that in a system of government whose 



80 The Doctrine of Entire Sanctijication. 

central idea is necessity there is no legitimate 
sphere for faith and prayer. 

In the philosophical adjustment of this question 
there are two principles involved. The first re- 
lates to the immutability of God. Can there be alter- 
natives with Him? Is immutability possible where 
contingencies exist ? In Watson's Institutes, vol. ii. 
page 429, he says : " The true immutability of God 
consists, not in His adherence to His purposes, but 
in His never changing the principles of His admin- 
istration, and He may therefore purpose to do 
under certain conditions, dependent on the free 
agency of man, what He will not do under others, 
and for this reason, that an immutable adherence 
to the principles of a wise, just and gracious gov- 
ernment requires it." Therefore, when God pur- 
poses to do anything to a nation or a man, a change 
in the conduct of the nation or the man necessitates 
a corresponding change in the actions of God 
towards the party, or a change in His principles 
and character. 

Sentence was pronounced against Nineveh, — 
loud and clear rang out the proclamation " Yet 
forty days and Nineveh shall be overthrown." " So 
the people of Nineveh believed God and pro- 
claimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the 



Prayer as a Factor in the Salvation of Men. 81 

greatest of them even to the least of them . . . 
and God saw their works that they turned from 
their evil way, and God repented of the evil that 
He said He would do unto them and He did it 
not." 

In the xviii. chapter of Jeremiah, God says : 
" At what instant I shall speak concerning a na- 
tion and concerning a kingdom, to pluck up, to 
pull down and to destroy it, and that nation against 
whom I have pronounced, turn from their evil way, 
I will repent of the evil I thought to do unto 
them. And at what instant I shall speak con- 
cerning a nation and concerning a kingdom, to 
build and to plant it, and it do evil in my 
sight, that it obey not my voice, then I will repent 
of the good wherewith I said I will benefit them." 

This principle of the Divine immutability is 
illustrated in the case of every penitent sinner who 
abandons his evil way and receives the pardon 
of his sins at the hands of a just God. 

The second principle involves the fact so well 
established by science, viz., that a natural law 
cannot be changed, suspended nor interrupted in 
its action. The laws of God are all irreversible, 
because of the " eternity of His goings forth." 
All the embarrassing objections to prayer are 
6 



82 The Doctrine of Entire Sanctijication. 

based on this fact. We must therefore find some 
way in which God can perform a miracle or an- 
swer prayer (for they both involve the same prin- 
ciple) without reversing or suspending, or in any 
manner interrupting, the natural laws, or we must 
yield the point and admit that prayer cannot 
benefit us at all. But if God ever wrought a 
miracle, He can, on the same principle, answer all 
prayers that come within the limit of the Divine 
promise. 

A miracle is not wrought by reversing or sus- 
pending a law of nature. When God performs a 
miracle, He does not act on the law. He operates 
on the matter. He takes the object on which His 
miraculous power is manifested out of the control 
of the law that governs it in its normal state, and 
does with it as He will. The boy tosses his ball 
in the air, and by a law of gravitation it returns 
toward the earth ; but he interposes a barrier in 
the form of a bat : the ball obeys the will of the 
boy, and is driven fiercely in another direction ; 
but there is no reversal, no suspension of law. 
The operation of law is universal and without 
interruption. When the young man let his axe 
fall into the stream, and it was miraculously made 
to swim, there was neither reversal nor suspension 



Prayer as a Factor in the Salvation of Men. 83 

of law. The water rolled on smoothly, the peb- 
bles remained quiescent. Everything obeyed the 
behest of nature's laws, and the invisible hand of 
God brought the iron to the surface just as the 
visible hand of the owner would have done if it 
had been within his reach. The suspension of 
the law of gravitation, if it had been possible, 
would not have moved the axe to the surface; 
law is helpless of itself. Inertia is a property of 
matter, and the iron would still obey that law. 

The suspension of any law, could it be accom- 
plished even for a moment, would produce a 
catastrophe more dreadful than the explosion of 
a million tons of dynamite ; it would inaugurate 
a reign of terror in the physical world, and array 
every separate and distinct atom and force in 
nature against its kindred atoms and forces. 
Such a disaster is avoided by the continuous 
presence of an intelligent will-force — the super- 
vision of Almighty God, who is no way tram- 
meled or embarrassed by the laws of His own 
kingdom, laws which originate in and proceed 
from Himself. 

According to a law of nature, a plum hangs on 
the tree till fully ripe ; but an insect stings it and 
deposits a poison, and immediately it yields to the 



84 The Doctrine of Entire Sanctification. 

force of another law — the law of decay. The in- 
sect knew nothing of the existence of any law or 
of its own relation to any ethical code. It did 
not sting the law; it only poisoned the plum. 
According to a law of nature, a pear hangs on the 
tree till fully ripe ; but a mischievous boy, in the 
exercise of his will-power, and impelled by the 
stimulus of appetite, removes it from the control 
of the law that governs it in its normal condition, 
subjects it to the action of other laws, — digestion 
and assimilation, — and by those mysterious pro- 
cesses the pear is transmuted into the tissues of 
his own body. But the boy is unconscious of the 
existence of any law. He acts specifically upon 
the pear, regardless of the law governing in either 
aspect of the case. Therefore, if in the common 
spheres of life these things are so easy and simple, 
we can readily see how, in the higher realm of 
philosophy, God, who possesses all things and 
rules by His own will, can answer any prayer 
that does not antagonize His own perfections. 

God is not only the supreme power of the uni- 
verse, but He is the supreme intelligence also; 
He possesses will and affection in an infinite sense. 
When He created man for His own companion- 
ship, He endowed him with will, affection and 



Prayer as a Factor in the Salvation of Men, 85 

intelligence. Man possesses, in a finite sense, all 
the qualities that the Father possesses, in an infi- 
nite sense. Man is God's child, made in His own 
likeness and image; and as prayer implies per- 
sonal communion, we are not to treat God simply 
as a force, or as an incomprehensible influence, 
but as a person. 

Granting the fact of intelligent personality and 
volitional power, and conceding the fact that man 
is a being of God's own creation — also possessing 
bona fide volitional power — miraculous manifesta- 
tions are not only possible, but prayer is the 
easiest and most natural procedure between a 
compassionate God and His needy and dependent 
children. 

But prayer is not necessarily answered by the 
processes of natural law, nor by the suspension of 
law. But as a divine personality God takes hold 
of the subject of prayer, whatever it may be, re- 
moves it from out the control of the law which 
governs it in its existing condition, subjects it to 
the influence of other laws and other conditions. 
He does this in the exercise of His Divine prerog- 
ative. Answers to prayer therefore imply more 
than " the reflex action of the petitioner's desires 
on his own life." It is the compliance of the 



86 The Doctrine of Entire Sanctification. 

compassionate Father with the request of His de- 
pendent and helpless children. 

This compliance may be in harmony with the 
natural laws, as in the supply of temporal wants, 
or it may be the going forth of His Divine power, 
as in the healing of the leper, or the raising of the 
widow's son, or as in the pardon of a penitent 
sinner, or the sanctification of a consecrated be- 
liever. Because God's immutability, which is 
the basis of His action and His power to act, 
must remain the same in all ages and because 
prayer is answered on the same philosophical 
principle upon which miracles are wrought, it 
must be conceded that prayer always has been, 
and must always remain, one of the most impor- 
tant factors in the government of the world. 

(6) The conditions of successful prayer. 

We have examined the philosophic basis of 
prayer, and discover that there are no physical 
barriers to God's power with men. 

There is one fundamental fact not to be forgot- 
ten : the distance between God and His alienated 
children is not computed by space-measurement, 
but is represented by moral quality. 

But as God conversed with man in his unfallen 
state, and as this intimacy was interrupted by sin, 



Prayer as a Factor in the Salvation of Men. 87 

it follows as an irresistible conclusion, that if there 
is any significance to the atonement, if there is 
reconciliation in Jesus Christ, this interrupted in- 
timacy is conditionally re-established through the 
redemptive agencies of the gospel. Jesus says : 
" If a man love me, he will keep my words, and 
my Father will love him, and we will come unto 
him and make our abode with him;" and John, 
continuing the same subject, says: "Truly our 
fellowship is with the Father and with His Son, 
Jesus Christ." Again : " If ye abide in me and 
my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, 
and it shall be done unto you ; and all things what- 
soever ye ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive." 

These passages of Scripture not only reveal the 
fact of possible fellowship, but clearly teach the 
obligation to the most intimate and confidential 
relations between man and his Creator. The fact 
that man in his primeval state not only knew and 
trusted God, but that the Father reciprocated the 
confidence, and loved and trusted him, is clearly 
taught, and that the gospel was instituted to bring 
the alienated race back to the Father's house, and 
establish confidential relations between the soul 
and God, is equally clear. 

The thoughtful mind recognizes the fact that 



88 The Doctrine of Entire Sanctification. 

the highest and most endearing relationship ex- 
isting anywhere is one of mutual confidence. Be- 
cause of this fact God promises to reciprocate the 
confidence of His children and bestow upon them 
all the exalted privileges of the Divine fellow- 
ship, if they will return to their allegiance to the 
Divine government. 

Perfect faith is a continuous act or condition of 
the soul, in which no shadow of doubt is ever 
visible, and in which the soul is so transparent 
that no foul suspicion lurks anywhere in its 
depths. It is a state of perfect confidence in 
God, which He reciprocates by taking up His 
abode in the soul, not as a transient visitor, but 
as an abiding guest ; and dwelling thus in mutual 
affection, God does " supply all our needs, accord- 
ing to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus." In 
this state of mutual confidence it is a pleasure for 
the Heavenly Father to fulfil His promises and 
grant the loyal soul the desire of his heart. 

The fact is brought distinctly to view that the 
soul dwelling in such perfect accord with Jesus 
will always ask in harmony with the Divine will 
and in the name of Jesus, and will always receive 
the things embraced in the petition. " If we say 
we have fellowship with Him, and walk in dark- 



Prayer as a Factor in the Salvation of Men. 89 

ness, we lie, and do not the truth. But if we 
walk in the light as He is in the light, we have 
fellowship one with another, and the blood of 
Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanseth us from all sin." 
Purity, therefore, is one essential condition to suc- 
cessful prayer. "If I regard iniquity in my 
heart, the Lord will not hear me." 

The success of the sinner in his plea for pardon 
is dependent upon his abandonment of a life of 
sin. He must not only abandon it, but his mo- 
tive in its surrender must be pure or God cannot 
pardon, and no believer can be wholly sanctified 
until he surrender all uncleanness, and no sanc- 
tified soul could remain in that holy state if he 
should desire it merely as a personal luxury; and 
any effort on the part of any one to secure the 
Divine aid in any enterprise for the aggrandize- 
ment of the worker must utterly fail. Every- 
thing is in Christ, the believer is in Christ, and 
between them there is oneness of desire, oneness 
of object and of aim. "All the promises of God 
in Him are yea, and in Him are amen unto the 
glory of God by us." 

When an individual is in this state of perfect 
accord with the Divine nature, and abides in that 
condition, he has the Saviour's authority and 



90 The Doctrine of Entire Sanctification. 

pledge: "Ask what ye will, and it shall be done 
unto you." God perfectly trusts the individual 
who, without doubt or suspicion, trusts Him. 

(c) Prayer not the way to God. 

Faith is the only way to God; prayer is the 
messenger, the courier of the soul. 

There is one fact which must not be forgotten. 
There is no power in faith, no power in prayer, 
per se; these connect the soul with the living 
source of all power. To ignore the personality 
of Jesus Christ is to utterly fail. He said to the 
disciples: " All power in heaven and in earth is 
given unto me ; go ye therefore and teach all na- 
tions. ... I am with you always, even unto 
the end of the world." Asking is prayer — ask- 
ing in prayer believing the promise of God. He 
manifests His power and saves the sinner, sancti- 
fies the believer, sends comfort to the sorrowing, 
or deliverance to the tempted. Prayer does not 
soothe the petitioner to sleep ; it awakens his dor- 
mant energies, and puts him in a state of expect- 
ancy, and moves God in compassion toward the 
supplicant. If the petitioner believes that God 
will answer, he becomes anxious, assumes a recep- 
tive attitude ; God responds to his desire, and the 
answer comes thrilling his soul. 



Prayer as a Factor in the Salvation of Men. 91 

Faith, like a strong iron bridge, spans the deep, 
dark chasm that sin rent in the moral universe. 
The one end rests on the promise of the Word ; 
the other rests securely on the eternal throne of 
the Promiser; and the whole superstructure is 
supported by the mediation of Jesus Christ. 
If the way to God be broken, or if there be some 
obstruction on it, or if the messenger be sick or 
indolent, the supplies will cease and the spiritual 
life will perish. Prayer goes up from the soul 
with thanksgiving — goes to pour out its gratitude 
into the Father's ear. The Holy Ghost comes 
down the same shining way with fresh supplies of 
grace. Again prayer goes up and tables the soul's 
needs at the mercy-seat ; lays down its burden of 
sorrow, of disappointment, of affliction or be- 
reavement at the feet of Jesus, and the Holy Ghost 
comes in, freighted with comfort, strength, wis- 
dom and joy. Paul sounded the key-note of vic- 
tory for all the ages in that luminous sentence, 
"Not I, but Christ!" 



92 The Doctrine of Entire Sanetifieoiion. 



CHAPTER XV. 

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN REGENERATION AND 
SANCTIFICATION. 

IN one of the preceding chapters the difference 
between the various stages of the work of 
grace was stated incidentally. 

A little attention to the meaning of terms, and 
a recognition of the fact that, in revealing the 
will of God to man, the Holy Ghost never uses 
two terms of widely different signification to in- 
dicate the same particular state or thing, will en- 
able the thoughtful mind to discern clearly be- 
tween the different processes of salvation. 

Sanctification is a distinct but never separate 
state of grace, differing both from justification and 
regeneration, coming after these and to be sought 
and obtained as the work of God in response to a 
specific act of faith. 

The apparent difficulties that environ this sub- 
ject will all disappear if we accept the legitimate 
definition of the terms employed by the Holy Ghost 
to designate the various stages of grace in the soul. 



Regeneration and Sanctification. 93 

The Divine order of salvation is justification, 
regeneration, sanctification. If the Holy Ghost 
uses these terms interchangeably, they all mean 
the same thing ; if not, they each have a specific 
meaning and indicate one step in the recovery of 
the soul from sin. 

Therefore, if we can correctly define these 
terms and bring them clearly before the mind, we 
will relieve the subject of much embarrassment. 

Justification is a legal term ; it has regard* to 
man's relation to the law of God, and when used 
in its evangelical sense signifies the pardon of past 
sins. The guilt of actual transgression is thereby 
removed and the penalty canceled. 

Then, if it were true that there was nothing 
between the sinner and God but his guilt, the 
work of salvation would be complete. But, if 
the salvation were thus complete, the Holy Ghost 
would not use two other terms describing two 
other aspects of the case and indicating two other 
religious states. 

(1) The first step in the recovery from sin im- 
plies the actual pardon of all past offenses and the 
adjustment of the penitent to his right legal rela- 
tions, which brings him into harmony with the 
law of God and secures peace. " Being justified 



94 The Doctrine of Entire Sandiftcation. 

by faith, we have peace with God through our 
Lord Jesus Christ." 

(2) The second step in the Divine order is re- 
generation. This term does not signify forgive- 
ness of sin. It does not mean the removal of 
something from the soul, as is expressed by the 
act of pardon in the removal of guilt. It de- 
scribes a process entirely different from the act of 
pardon. It is the influx of a new force, — a force 
which by nature the soul does not possess. This 
takes place simultaneously with the act of pardon, 
or, at least, there is no perceptible succession be- 
tween the two Divine acts of pardon and regener- 
ation. The regeneration of the soul brings the 
party into harmony with the life of God. The 
Christ-life is imparted to the spiritual nature of 
man, and his personal relations so adjusted that 
the life of the " true vine " continues to flow into 
the branch, giving it both life and fruitage. 

(3) The third stage in the salvation of the 
soul is the purification of the heart. It is called 
sanctification, holiness, heart purity and the per- 
fection of love. This experience brings the be- 
liever into harmony with the nature of God. 

This experience is not simply a great blessing, 
— it is a specific work wrought by the Holy 
Ghost in the fulfillment of the Divine promise. 



Regeneration and Sanctification. 95 

There are " given unto us exceeding great and 
precious promises, that by these ye might be par- 
takers of the Divine nature, having escaped the 
corruption that is in the world through lust." 

All of this is implied in complete salvation, and 
the process by which the last-named stage is 
obtained is never called pardoning nor regener- 
ating ; it is called cleansing, purifying, sanctify- 
ing, making holy, " the putting away the filthi- 
ness of the flesh and the spirit." 

The process is altogether different from the 
preceding ones, and accomplishes also a different 
result. Sanctification is a distinct phase of salva- 
tion, differing both from justification and regener- 
ation, and necessarily coming after them, — 
a definite state of grace, to be sought and 
obtained in response to a specific act of faith. 
Therefore, when we say a man is sanctified wholly, 
we do not teach that the work of regeneration, 
which was imperfectly done, is completed, or that 
some additional sin which the Holy Ghost did 
not at first discover is now brought out of its hid- 
ing-place and pardoned, or that some secret back- 
sliding of the heart has been conquered. 

In the act of sanctification no new life element 
is imparted to the soul. The term will not admit 



96 The Doctrine of Entire Sanctification. 

of that interpretation. It is not the bringing into 
the soul a new force, but the elimination of a prin- 
ciple or element from the soul which is not in 
harmony with the new life already imparted. To 
sanctify is to make holy ; by this Divine act the 
essence of the soul is cleansed from the unholy 
taint imparted to it by sin, an impurity inhering 
in the soul as a sequent of the fall. It is not 
transgression ; therefore it cannot be pardoned. It 
is not a spiritual death ; therefore it does not lie in 
the realm of regeneration. It is moral unclean- 
ness, fitly symbolized by the leprosy ; hence it can 
only be removed by a process of purification. 

This view is perfectly philosophical and in har- 
mony with the church standards, and in perfect 
accord with all the facts of the case ; for man is 
not only guilty before God, and " dead in tres- 
passes and in sins," but he is morally defiled. 

" Lord, we are vile, conceived in sin, 
And born unholy and unclean ; 
Sprung from the man whose guilty fall 
Corrupts his race and taints us all. 
Soon as we draw our infant breath 
The seeds of sin grow up to death ; 
Thy law demands a perfect heart, 
But we're defiled in every part." 

Sanctification is that act of God by which He 



Regeneration and Sanetification. 97 

takes away the pollution of man's nature, entailed 
upon him by his corrupted federal head. Saneti- 
fication is not the baptism of the Spirit, which 
Christians of all grades may and do have, in a 
greater or lesser degree, to prepare them for spe- 
cial work in the Master's vineyard ; but it is a 
special work of the Holy Ghost, wrought in the 
soul, by which the sediment of sin — the taint of 
depravity — is eliminated. When the believer be- 
comes conscious of the existence of impurity, he 
has but one remedy, — he must take it, as he did 
his guilt, to Jesus, his only source of help, and, 
by one unyielding act of faith, submit himself to 
the " blood that cleanseth from all sin." 

The objection is frequently urged against this 
view that it disparages and minifies regeneration. 
But this is not true. I am no theorist, striving 
to make a place for a " second experience " or for 
a "special doctrine." We place holiness in our 
theological system, where God placed it in His 
revelation. It does not detract from that which 
precedes it, but exalts all by crowning the regen- 
erate, and only such as are regenerate, with the 
blessing of holiness ; and these three stages of 
grace constitute a glorious trinity of full salva- 
tion through the " blood of the Lamb." 
7 



98 The Doctrine of Entire Sanctijication. 

But it is asked, in all candor, If a man is still 
unholy after he is regenerated, " How can he be 
saved if he die before he is sanctified?" for God 
has said, "Without holiness, no man shall see the 
Lord." 

There are difficulties on the human side of this 
subject, but they do not originate with the doc- 
trine of full salvation, nor • with its advocates ; 
neither can they be relieved by evasion nor put 
aside by the sophistries of men. 

The Bible teaches that, notwithstanding all 
children are conceived in sin and born morally de- 
filed, all who die in infancy are saved by virtue 
of the atonement. The Holy Ghost applies the 
"blood of cleansing" to each heart because they 
do not resist Him. The children are not actual 
sinners; consequently they are not guilty; they 
have initial spiritual life in Christ. " As in 
Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made 
alive." To whatever extent the race suffered 
seminally in Adam, they are reimbursed in Christ 
Jesus. But they are defiled and impure only by 
influences over which they had no control, and 
for which they are not responsible ; and not only 
the goodness of God, but absolute justice, demands 
their salvation. A converted person, and unsanc- 



Regeneration and Sanctijication. 99 

tified, sustains exactly the same relation to God so 
long as he does not forfeit his justification. He 
is pardoned of his actual sins and renewed in his 
spiritual life, and the depravity of his own con- 
tracting is purged away. He only suffers from 
the hereditary impurity received as an unconscious 
legacy from his corrupted federal head ; and al- 
though he is in a sense unholy, he is not respon- 
sible for that condition, and is as innocent as 
childhood, which Jesus says is entitled to the 
kingdom of Heaven. 

But we must not be misled at this point. So 
soon as the Holy Ghost applies the light to the 
conscience, and discovers to the believer his na- 
tive defilement, and he deliberately refuses to sur- 
render it to the cleansing blood, he goes into 
condemnation. The cause of the " up-and-down" 
life of the church is the unwillingness to follow 
the light when God reveals to His people their 
inward pollution. The believer retains his hered- 
itary impurity by his refusal, and thus makes it 
his own, and, if he does not apostatize, he inau- 
gurates a conflict that in many cases continues to 
the end of life. 

If, while T sleep, a thief puts a one hundred dol- 
lar bill in my pocket, it does not make me a thief. 



100 The Doctrine of Entire Sanctification. 

I may carry it unconsciously for an indefinite period, 
but when I discover it and refuse to surrender 
it to the rightful owner, I become a thief, not 
only in a moral sense, but in the eyes of the law. 

On the same principle, a converted person is 
completely a child of God and an heir of Heaven 
until he is shown his impurity, when, if he abso- 
lutely refuses to surrender it to the demands of 
the law, he loses his innocence, and if he persist in 
that course of opposition, he forfeits his sonship 
and becomes guilty before God. 

And the same law of progress applies to every 
possible stage of Christian advancement. When- 
ever the Holy Ghost opens the way to a more ex- 
alted position in the spiritual life, the favored in- 
dividual can only retain that which he now 
enjoys by an immediate compliance with the 
Divine order and a prompt move to the front. 

These three states of grace do not necessarilyco- 
exist ; they are not coetaneous. A Christian may, 
and, according to their own testimony, much the 
larger number of Christians do, live without the 
conscious experience of inward holiness. It is the 
doctrine of the Bible and of the church, as formu- 
lated in her standards, that " sanctification is after 
regeneration " in the Divine arrangement. 



Regeneration and Sanetijication. 101 

We concede the fact that they may all be ex- 
perienced at once if the soul apprehends its wants 
and accepts Christ as its perfect Saviour, " whose 
blood cleanseth from all sin." Mr. Fletcher says : 
" The effect of sanctifying truth depending upon 
the ardor of the faith with which that truth is 
embraced, and the power of that Spirit by which 
it is applied, I should betray a want of modesty if 
I brought the operation of the Holy Ghost and 
the energy of faith under a rule which is not ex- 
pressly laid down in the Scriptures. If one pow- 
erful baptism of the Spirit seals you unto redemp- 
tion and cleanses you from all moral filthiness, so 
much the better ; if two or more are necessary, God 
can repeat them." 

While we concede the above, we are assured by 
the word of God, and sustained by almost the 
universal experience of the church, that the 
penitent soul, either through ignorance of its 
spiritual condition or from an overwhelming sense 
of its guilt, overlooks or neglects the fact of its 
moral impurity, and it is not until after repeated 
conflicts with inbred corruption that the Holy 
Ghost succeeds in leading the panting soul to the 
cleansing fountain. The Psalmist, after years 
of intermittent fellowship with God, prostrate in 



102 The Doctrine of Entire Sanctification. 

the dust, lacerated and bleeding from wounds in- 
flicted by his spiritual foes, pleading with an 
eloquence almost Divine, cried earnestly u Create in 
me a clean heart, O God." It was not pardon, 
nor spiritual life, but a pure heart that he earnestly 
desired. 

The Apostle John says : " If we confess our 
sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins 
and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." If 
pardon and cleansing are terms that describe the 
same act and indicate the same moral state, why 
does the Holy Ghost always use the term cleanse as 
legitimately following the term pardon ? 

The case may be briefly stated as follows : God's 
order of salvation is pardon, regeneration, sanctifi- 
cation. These terms do not all mean the same 
thing ; they are not interchangeable. Each one 
describes a distinct act of God, by one of which 
man's legal relations are changed, by the second a 
new life force is imparted to his spirit, and by the 
other the essence of the soul receives the impress of 
the Divine nature, and all three are essential to 
complete salvation. 

As formerly stated, this complete salvation being 
God's own work and contingent upon man's faith, 
may be accomplished at once if the faith compre- 



Regeneration and Sandijication. 103 

hend the whole realm of human need ; but such is 
seldom, if ever, the case. But if it should be so, it 
does not change the relation of the one to the 
other, as pardon precedes regeneration, though 
occurring so that there is no conscious succession ; 
even so does regeneration precede sanctification in 
point of fact, if not in point of time. 



104 The Doctrine of Entire Sanctification. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

THE NECESSITY OF HOLINESS. 

GOD commands " Be ye Holy " and the apostle 
adds " For without holiness no man shall see 
the Lord." That which is born of the flesh is 
flesh, and by no system of ecclesiastical authority 
or churchly culture can the nature of man be 
changed. Therefore, whosoever is contending for 
personal superiority, for empty creed or for denom- 
inational greatness, to the neglect of spiritual life 
and moral purity, needs the apostolic rebuke, " Are 
ye not carnal and walk as men? " 

Who has not wept tears of sadness over the 
strifes and unholy contentions of Christianity ? and 
what true Christian does not breathe a fervent 
prayer to heaven that the smoke and dust of this 
most unrighteous conflict may soon be cleared 
away, and its noise and tumult cease forever, and 
the clangor of spiritual warfare be hushed amid 
the anthems of universal praise that shall break 
forth from the united hosts of a fire-baptized church 
as it sweeps in holy triumph around the world? 



The Necessity of Holiness. 105 

Holiness, as a personal experience for the great 
body of believers, is the golden highway to this 
state of religious life and power. The church 
absolutely requires all that the Great Provider has 
in store for it to prepare it for its work • it must 
have more spiritual energy to preserve it from the 
destructive power of selfish love, from the blight 
that eateth as doth a canker. 

That the church has taken a part of the great 
salvation is evidence against it ; by refusing to take 
more, it shuts out others to perish. It prefers a 
narrow sphere of action. It selects from the Fath- 
er's estate a small portion, throws around it a wall 
of prejudice and calls it the universe, and in its 
isolation imagines that all that lies beyond the 
confines of its inclosure is a barren waste, a howl- 
ing wilderness. 

The w T hole of Christ's salvation was provided for 
every man, and a carnal and worldly or an indo- 
lent and thoughtless priesthood may not inclose 
for selfish purposes any portion of Christ's free- 
hold of salvation, now held in trust by Him for 
fallen man. 

Half-systems in religion, like half-truths in 
philosophy, are incomplete and dangerous in their 
tendency. To reject any portion of God's precious 



106 The Doctrine of Entire Sandification. 

gift of salvation mars the symmetry of the whole. 
By refusing to accept the crowning glory of Christ's 
redemptive work, which is the experimental and 
practical holiness of each individual member, we 
obscure and subordinate the chief object of all His 
Divine effort. " Christ loved the church and gave 
Himself for it, that He might sanctify and cleanse 
it with the washing of water by the word ; that 
He might present it to Himself a glorious church, 
not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but 
that it should be holy and without blemish." 

By rejecting this phase of the Master's work, or 
assigning it to some other agency, we virtually 
eliminate the Divine element from our religious 
system, and make a religion of our own, make it 
of Divine material, but yet human in every essen- 
tial part, and entirely human at the point where 
human nature needs most of all the Divine help. 
Man can and must do much for himself in with- 
standing temptation, in framing his purposes and 
conforming his life to the standard of the Divine 
law, but the leopard can change his spots and 
the Ethiopian his skin easier than man can elimi- 
nate the lingering elements of depravity from his 
own soul by any process of culture whatever. 

The pulpit and the press have fulminated their 



The Necessity of Holiness. 107 

earnest and eloquent warnings against the danger 
of putting undue emphasis upon any one truth or 
giving special prominence to any one doctrine. 
They have become special pleaders for symmetry 
and denounced all special efforts for the promotion 
of Scriptural holiness. Holiness of heart is only 
full salvation ; it is the climax of the Divine pro- 
cedure, the completion of the work of purification, 
which was begun in regeneration, and which is 
not attainable separate from those primary stages 
of grace which, in God's order of salvation, must 
of necessity precede it, and without which, if such 
a state were conceivable, it would be incomplete and 
out of proportion. 

We concede that any undue exaltation of a doc- 
trine from its legitimate place is dangerous ; the 
magnifying of any of the parts of a disjointed sys- 
tem is destructive of the whole. But it is also 
true that any separation of a part from the whole 
causes incompleteness, destroys the beauty of its 
proportion and ultimates in disaster. 

Hence the emasculation of experimental holiness 
from the Christian system is not only destructive of 
its beauty, but also of its divinity and power. 

Holiness without the primary stages of grace 
would be an inverted column, a pyramid stand- 



108 The Doctrine of Entire Sanctification. 

ing on its apex with the base in the air, a fabulous 
conception. 

But without holiness the Christian system is a 
broken column, a worthless and an impractical 
scheme. If to give holiness prominence is to 
blemish the Christian system, to eliminate it is to 
commit a crime against the system and its author. 

Christianity is a complete system, perfect in all 
its parts. It is not merely an accumulation of 
facts, any one of which may be rejected without 
loss, and all of which are at the discretion of the 
receiver ; it is a complete and authoritative sys- 
tem, conceived in the Divine mind and revealed to 
man, supplying every varied need of his manhood, 
and man is in need of all its help. As a sinner, 
he needs all to save him perfectly from sin. As a 
Christian, he needs all to keep him pure and sweet, 
to round out his character at every point and 
endow him with strength adequate to the demands 
of this life. This no partial system can do; hence 
the gospel not only makes provision for man's 
perfect salvation, but for almost unlimited growth 
after he is saved. 



Optimism and Holiness. 109 



CHAPTER XVII. 
OPTIMISM AND HOLINESS. 

THE harmony of moral agency with the Divine 
Sovereignty, the relation of sin to holiness, 
and the relation of physical pain to the salvation 
of the soul, in a system of moral government, are 
questions of profound interest to beings with an 
infinite destiny before them. God has revealed the 
fact that sin is of the devil, and that holiness is of 
Christ, and that there is an eternal hostility, not 
only between two antagonistic principles, but be- 
tween two intelligent personalities. " He that com- 
mitteth sin is of the devil, for the devil sinneth 
from the beginning. For this purpose was the 
Son of God manifested that He might destroy the 
works of the devil." The fact is clearly stated in 
the gospel, not only of the irreconcilable nature of 
sin and holiness, but equally so of the personal 
representatives of these two spiritual kingdoms, 
and with equal clearness it states the fact that 
" recovery from sin " is not by evolution nor by 
attrition, but by a Divine act of the Son of God. 



1 10 The Doctrine of Entire Sandifimtion. 

We have stated elsewhere that sin is not a necessary 
factor in the government of God ; it is an intruder, 
a usurper, and is to be eliminated and utterly de- 
stroyed. 

It is claimed by some that sin, when controlled 
by the Divine hand, tends toward a healthier con- 
dition of society, and that a state of sinfulness is 
the normal condition of the soul, that sin acts 
like an abscess on the body, which carries off effete 
and poisonous matter, and is the result of a recu- 
perative process, imperceptibly carried forward, 
which will end in perfect health ; thus sin will in 
due time heal itself. 

There is another class of teachers, many of them 
among the professors of holiness, who assume that 
all instrumentalities are alike with God ; that He 
uses all agencies to accomplish His ends; that 
w T icked men and devils as effectually do His will 
as the burning seraphs that encircle the throne; 
that so soon as a purpose leaves the sacred precinct 
of the volitions God seizes it and makes it subserve 
His ends, though its conception was in the highest 
sense criminal. 

This theory assumes that there is an arena of 
action where neither Jesus Christ nor the Ploly 
Ghost can operate, a department of salvation which 



Optimism and Holiness. Ill 

they cannot accomplish, an outlying region given 
over exclusively to evil that good may be evolved 
therefrom. It is continually affirmed that there 
are shades of Christian character that can only be 
brought out under difficulty. It is assumed that 
affliction polishes the soul just as the diamond 
receives its lustre while in contact with the lapi- 
dary, the severe and long-continued friction im- 
parting a brilliancy of finish not otherwise attain- 
able, and that God subjects His children to such 
a degree of affliction and sorrow by loss of property 
and other calamities that will secure that measure 
of purity and development that is well pleasing in 
His sight. 

If this theory were true, the devil must either 
turn the lapidary or hold the unwilling subject 
hard against the revolving wheel. This must be 
so, for Jesus said " That no fountain can send forth 
both bitter and sweet water," and " That a house 
divided against itself cannot stand." And all with 
one voice deny that God is the author of evil, and 
if moral or physical evil is necessary to the salva- 
tion or discipline of man, then there is one part of 
His salvation God cannot accomplish. The Bible 
represents Jesus and the adversary as eternal, un- 
compromising foes, and there can be no collusion 



112 The Doctrine of Entire Sanctification. 

between them, no agreement that when the saved 
are gathered into heaven the great mass of the lost 
shall be turned over to Satan as his well-earned 
share of the spoil. 

The first prophetic vision of these renowned 
contestants reveals Jesus as a conqueror. The first 
promise was one of victory, and presents to the 
injured party in the fall a Saviour bruising Satan's 
head while yet His heel is moist with the poisoned 
slime of the serpent's venomed fang. And from 
that time to the present period there has been no 
armistice, no cessation of hostilities. Our peace is 
not secured by negotiation and compromise, but 
by glorious conquest. 

However contradictory it may appear to human 
philosophy, spiritual life and moral purity are the 
gift of God and are bestowed on all who cheerfully 
submit to His requirement; and all affiliation with 
evil, all distrust and disobedience, produce disaster 
and death, just as in the beginning. Sin, like the 
virus of the small-pox, communicates its own na- 
ture to whatever it touches. Physical death being 
a product of sin, is of the same nature as sin ; it 
produces its own kind. 

One drop of blood from the veins of a dead man 
injected into the circulating blood of a healthy 



Optimism and Holiness. 113 

person will produce death in an inconceivably short 
time. Sin repeats itself by contact, produces only 
its kind, and to assign sin or any of its sequents a 
place among the gospel agents is to disparage the 
work of salvation and cast odium on the " Blood 
that cleanseth from all sin." The advocates of 
the optimistic philosophy assume that everything 
in the world is not only good, but that it is the 
best that is possible. This theory assumes that 
evil, with its long train of sequents, is a necessity ; 
that the sombre shadows that fall across man's 
pathway, the overwhelming calamities incident to 
this life, are the essential conditions of individual 
and national advancement. It is further assumed 
that there is in evil an inherent power to sublimate 
the affections and exalt humanity. 

A distinguished writer says : " The sanctification 
of the soul is always accompanied with pain ;" and 
a prominent American statesman said during the 
recent war : " It seems to be a part of the plan of 
Divine Providence that every marked advance in 
national as well as individual life must begin amid 
the throes of tumultuous and conflicting emotions. 
Thus it has been with the present struggle in our 
land; already, under the blood-stained grass of a 
hundred battle-fields, lie the seeds of a new growth 
8 



114 The Doctrine of Entire Sanctification. 

waiting to sprout into greenness that shall crown 
the land with freedom, brotherhood and peace." 
The assumption that evil may be a blessing, that 
it ever contributes to the advancement of humanity, 
is a delusion. Job says : " Who can bring a clean 
thing out of an unclean? Not one." And the 
Psalmist, looking upon the glory of Jerusalem and 
contemplating his many deliverances, exclaimed: 
" Thou hast given me the shield of Thy salvation. 
Thy right hand hath holden me up, and Thy 
gentleness hath made me great." 

The system of philosophy that accounts for the 
sanctification of the soul and the growth and per- 
petuity of national life by the attrition of moral 
and physical evil is a fabulous conception, the 
product of a superstitious age, — a beautiful but 
gilded illusion. There is no power in sin but to 
destroy; the only thing that can hurt the soul is 
sin. "Sin is the most odious thing in the uni- 
verse." It not only defies the law of God, but had 
it the power, it would drive Him from His throne. 

Therefore, as sin is not a Divine factor in the 
government of God, it can never become a co- 
operative force; and as suffering is a sequent of 
sin, it can never become the condition of good to 
the individual or the state. 



Optimism and Holiness. 115 

Every ill, every pain, every calamity, may — 
yea, does — furnish opportunity for some special 
manifestation of God's love, some exhibition of 
His special care over His children, but no part of 
the blessing proceeds from or is conditioned on 
the evil. The shipwrecked sailor upon a desolate 
island cannot be recovered by the disaster that 
sent him ashore; the situation cannot be improved 
by his cold or hunger. It is the searching party, 
the rescuers from the life-saving station, that secure 
safety ; it is the well-filled basket of the ministering 
friend that brings relief, satisfies hunger and saves 
the life of the sufferer. 

This whole system is erroneously conceived. 
By ignoring a personal Christ as the only fountain 
of all good, it assails the redemptive scheme and 
hurls its missiles against redemption and the Re- 
deemer. It strikes at the very citadel of the 
Christian system, and by emasculating the atone- 
ment and eliminating the fact of salvation by grace 
it makes instantaneous sanctification an impossi- 
bility, and launches the penitent soul, struggling 
for help, upon a tempestuous sea, whose crested 
billows hiss like demons in his desponding ears 
and mock his futile efforts to escape their fury. 

God is the only being in the universe that can 



116 The Doctrine of Entire So/notification. 

repair the wastes of sin. He only, by the Holy 
Ghost, can reconstruct the broken fabric of fallen 
manhood. It is only the grace of God that can 
sanctify the soul or assuage the grief of a stricken 
heart. God does not bring the good out of the 
evil. He does not make the evil the condition of 
good ; it is only the opportunity for the display of 
His infinite mercy. God in Christ Jesus comes 
to the rescue. He defeats Satanic purpose and 
overthrows evil by gracious agencies. He opens 
a passage through every Red Sea of difficulty and 
casts up a highway in the wilderness for His 
people. 

In a world where sin has inaugurated a curse ? 
where the foot-prints of evil are visible in every 
place, where suffering and sorrow, the inevitable 
sequences of sin, drive man downward to perdition, 
God sends help in Jesus Christ. He came "to 
seek and to save that which was lost." He came 
to deliver from sin and "all its train of woes," 
from the severest forms of unavoidable suffering 
which sin has entailed upon the race. God's grace 
is freely bestowed. The light of His written word 
leads the van in the grand march of progress, and 
the believing soul has the victory over sin, over 
its most disastrous consequences and farthest- 



Optimism and Holiness. 117 

reaching results, and instead of groaning out a life 
of perpetual defeat, he can say with the apostle: 
" Now thanks be unto God, who always causeth us 
to triumph in Christ, and maketh manifest the 
savor of His knowledge by us in every place." 



118 The Doctrine of Entire Sanctification. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 
SANCTIFICATION NOT A DISCIPLINARY PROCESS. 

THE opponents of instantaneous sanctification 
by the agency of the Holy Ghost are divided 
into two general classes, — the disciplinarians and 
the advocates of the growth theory. The disciplin- 
arians rely chiefly upon the prophetic statement of 
Malachi iii. 3 and PauPs statement to the Hebrew 
Church, Heb. xii. 6, for their Scriptural support. 
They assume, without the appearance of proof, 
that the " refiner's fire" and the " fuller's soap" 
refer to the ills of this life. A popular religious 
educator, in a note upon this text, says ; " The re- 
finer must sit with his eye upon the melted silver 
lest the fire be too hot, for the least over-degree of 
heat would spoil the silver, and the refiner knows 
when the silver is refined by seeing his image re- 
flected from its surface. Thus God keeps His eye 
upon His children when they are in trouble. He 
watches them all the way through the storm, and 
when He sees that the trials have done their work 



Sanctification not a Disciplinary Process. 119 

and we are formed into His likeness, the fire is 
removed and the storm ceases" 

How any sane mind can, after mature thought, 
trace a resemblance between the operation of fire 
on metals and the influence of suffering or sorrow 
upon a human soul, or between the effect of fuller's 
soap on woolen fabrics and the operation of a tem- 
pest in or upon a human heart, is one of the prob- 
lems too vast for our intellectual capacity. No 
more dangerous or delusive interpretation is con- 
ceivable. No legitimate rendering of this text 
gives any support to the gradualist or the disci- 
plinarian. 

But, on the contrary, this Scripture is one of the 
most beautiful and irresistible proofs of instanta- 
neous sanctification by the Holy Ghost, as a second 
distinct work occurring subsequent to regeneration, 
that can be found in the Bible. The prophet uses 
two familiar figures to illustrate and enforce one 
doctrine. The subject of regeneration is not in 
the prophet's thought. God is revealing to the 
w T orld through him the Divine method of purifica- 
tion. 

In the interpretation of Scripture and in its 
application to the processes of salvation there are 
certain primary principles that, when clearly stated, 



120 The Doctrine of Entire Sandijication. 

are at once apprehended by every thoughtful 
mind. 

(1) The first, the one grand fundamental fact 
of orthodoxy, is, — that man is not saved by any 
disciplinary process whatever, but that his salva- 
tion, from its incipiency to its culmination, is an 
act of sovereign grace. 

(2) In a redemptive scheme salvation is the 
Redeemer's own personal work, and all His agen- 
cies are necessarily of a redemptive character. 

(3) Sin is not a necessary part of the Divine 
plan, but a disturbing force thrust into the world 
from without. 

(4) All opposition to a life of holiness comes 
from sin. 

(5) All the suffering and sorrow there is in this 
world or will be in the next proceed from sin. 

(6) Neither sin nor any of its sequents can be- 
come agencies in the removal of sin from the heart. 

These fundamental facts in the Christian system 
teach us that while trial and pain furnish oppor- 
tunity for merciful interposition and glorious 
manifestation of God's power to support or deliver, 
they can never become the agents of salvation to 
any one. 

In the interpretation of this Scripture we must 



Sanctification not a Disciplinary Process. 121 

keep in view the subject of the prophetic dis- 
course. 

The prophet is speaking definitely of purifica- 
tion. The original word is Ta-her. It can have 
no reference to the creation of anything, nor to the 
formation of anything from material already pre- 
pared. The word can have no reference to any- 
thing except the cleansing of that which already 
exists. 

The primary reference of the prophet is to the 
purification of the priesthood and not to the con- 
version of sinners, and to assume that this com- 
pound figure refers to the Divine method of making 
Christians is to force it from its legitimate mean- 
ing. 

The declared purpose is " to purify the sons of 
Levi," and if we would not do violence to the 
figure, we must admit that, inasmuch as " He is 
like a refiner's fire and like fuller's soap," and that 
He in His Divine personality purifies the sons of 
Levi, He will in like manner purify all Chris- 
tians. 

The process of purification is not like anything 
else. It is not the creation of silver, nor the sepa- 
ration of the metal from the crude ore. It is an 
act of purification, a refining process. " He is like 



122 The Doctrine of Entire Sanctification. 

a refiner's fire and like fuller's soap." Soap is never 
used in manufacturing goods; it is only known as 
a cleansing agent. Disciplinarians force this Scrip- 
ture out of all reasonable application. They 
attribute to the trials of life that which God only 
in His Divine personality can do. God does not say 
He will purify in the " furnace of affliction/' but 
in the quietness of personal contact and in the ex- 
ercise of His Divine prerogative, He will purify the 
sons of Levi. 

God says He will perform the act of cleansing, 
and it must therefore be done by Divine edict or 
by personal contact and indwelling. 

The perverted use of this Scripture by disciplin- 
arians is no surprise, but that believers in the 
redemptive scheme should substitute this process 
for the blood of atonement and the operation of 
the Holy Ghost is almost inconceivable. 

" I will send My messenger and He shall pre- 
pare the way before Me, and the Lord whom ye 
seek shall suddenly come to His temple (the human 
heart), even the messenger of the covenant whom ye 
delight in." The coming in of the messenger of 
the covenant is after the heart is prepared for His 
coming. "But who shall abide the day of His 
coming and who shall stand when He appeareth, 



Sanctification not a Disciplinary Process. 123 

for he is like a refiner's fire and like fuller's 
soap." 

The first and second personal pronouns occur in 
this paragraph eleven times, where they are used 
to indicate the name or express the act of deity, 
and the terms Lord and God occur four times. 
These proper nouns and personal pronouns are 
never applied to things ; they can have no refer- 
ence to the extraneous agencies of a probational life. 

The objects put in comparison by the prophet 
are a personal God and a refiner's fire. 

As the refiner's fire is to the silver a purifying 
agent, so does the indwelling of a personal Christ 
cleanse the heart from all sin, — " He is like a re- 
finer's fire and fuller's soap." 

The prophet continually recognizes a personal 
deity as the only agency of purification. The fact 
and the method of cleansing constitute the theme 
of this discourse. 

There are no references to Christian growth, no 
allusions to the primary process of regeneration. 
It is the one fact of cleansing, and both figures 
refer to the same thing. 

There are two distinct processes in the prepara- 
tion of standard silver. 

After the ore is taken from the mine it is put 



124 The Doctrine of Entire Sanctificafion. 

in the smelter and separated from its natural 
crudities ; it is then in a state of bullion. The 
smelting was the first process in the preparation of 
the metal, and was perfect in itself. But the 
prophet speaks of a subsequent process, a short, 
definite, but very important one. 

After the ore is reduced to bullion at the smel- 
ter, and before it can be coined into standard 
money or manufactured into costly vessels, all 
impurities and all alloy must be eliminated ; but 
the purification of silver is not a protracted process. 
The prepared metal has gone once through the 
furnace, the crude ore is reduced to bullion ; in this 
condition it is brought a second time into contact 
with the fire, and in a brief but steady heat, it is 
kept in a state of solution until the alloy passes off, 
leaving the silver pure. 

When the individual Christian reaches the point 
in his religious experience where he is separated 
from his actual sins and the impurities they have 
communicated to him and is made alive in Christ, 
he is, according to these figures, ready for the puri- 
fier. 

With his consent and co-operation, God comes 
into his soul as a " refiner's fire." 

It is not trial, it is not pain that purifies; neither 



Sanctijication not a Disciplinary Process. 125 

are these the conditions of cleansing ; pain, either 
mental or physical, is a legitimate sequent of sin. It 
is God that purifies. " The Holy Ghost is the sanc- 
tifier." The Divine personality comes into the 
heart as a refiner's fire. Isaiah represents God as 
saying to this class of persons, " And I will turn 
my hand upon thee and will surely purge away all 
thy dross and take away all thy tin." 

But the other figure is equally significant. He 
is " like fuller's soap." The comparison is not 
between deity and the weaver, nor the fuller. 
Soap is never used in the process of manufactur- 
ing. But after the finest woolen fabrics leave the 
loom there are certain oily substances inhering in 
them, accompanied with an accumulation of dust, 
which have to be removed before the goods are 
put upon the market. All domestic woolen goods, 
woven or knit, have to be subjected to the same 
operation before they are ready for use. The 
fuller's soap, by a purely chemical action, sets free 
every impurity. 

The fabric is then rinsed in clean water and all 
foreign substances are at once removed. Thus, 
when the Holy Ghost comes into the human heart 
He, by a Divine alchemy, liberates every element of 
hereditary depravity and leaves the soul without 



126 The Doctrine of Entire Sandifieatioti. 

alloy, shining in the lustre of experimental holi- 
ness. 

There is no word in the Bible, which, by legiti- 
mate interpretation, supports the idolatrous no- 
tion of purification by attrition, and no part of 
man's salvation can be accomplished by a disciplin- 
ary process. Discipline has its place and its 
agencies in the formation of character and in the 
development of skill in the use of our faculties, 
but discipline is not a factor in the salvation of the 
soul. 

It is by a kingly prerogative that pardon is 
granted. The Holy Ghost quickens the dead soul 
into newness of life " and the blood of Jesus Christ, 
His Son, cleanseth us from all sin/' 

The passage in Hebrews gives no support to the 
disciplinary theory of salvation. Every lover of 
the truth must be willing to accept the legitimate 
interpretation of the word of God. However dear 
our theories may be, we cannot afford to retain 
them at the sacrifice of the truth. Chasten is 
from the Greek word paduo. When used as a 
verb, its primary signification is " to teach ;" used 
as a noun, it is paidagogos, from which we have 
the English word pedagogue, literally a " school- 
master." The word occurs eleven times in the 



Sanctification not a Disciplinary Process. 127 

New Testament, where it cannot possibly mean 
" to afflict :" as in Acts vii. 22, " And Moses was 
learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians and was 
mighty in words and in deeds." 

Webster says that chasten, in its earlier mean- 
ing as used in the Scriptures, signifies " to purify 
from errors or faults," and it improves the force of 
the text if we give it that rendering here, — " For 
whom the Lord loveth He purifieth, and scourgeth 
every son whom he receiveth." This interpreta- 
tion harmonizes with the character of God, and 
exhibits Him in the paternal relation of instructor 
to all who are begotten of the Spirit. 

The other embarrassing member of the sentence 
is " scourgeth." It has its root in the Latin cor- 
rium or corriga, "a leash," "a thong," "a guid- 
ing rein." It has no reference to an instrument of 
torture. It signifies a means of restraint or guid- 
ance, — " The hound is held in the leash." 

" The dog conducted his master to where the 
game was secreted, leading him by a thong" 

The primary meaning of this entire passage is 
that God teaches by His word and Spirit all that 
are His. He restrains them from error and puri- 
fies them from sin, and leads into all truth those 
who are obedient sons. 



128 The Doctrine of Entire Sanctifieation. 

The entire system of thought that gives rise 
and support to the disciplinary theory of salvation 
is the natural result of erroneous conceptions of 
the Divine government, a futile effort to subsidize 
evil, and make it minister to human progress. It 
is inseparable from the assumption that evil is the 
decreed result of the Divine procedure, or the 
necessary product of the natural laws and forces. 



Holiness not Attained by Growth. 129 



CHAPTER XIX. 
HOLINESS NOT ATTAINED BY GROWTH. 

THAT class of gradualists who teach that holi- 
ness is a product of growth have embraced a 
fatal error. The doctrine of holiness by growth 
cannot be logically predicated of a corrupted 
moral being, it being possible only where there 
was no lapse of the moral nature, and in a being 
who was neither guilty nor polluted, and who only 
needed guidance, strength and development. 

A clear view of what constitutes entire sanctifi- 
cation and a limited knowledge of the laws of 
growth will demonstrate the impossibility of ob- 
taining the experience of entire sanctification in 
that way. A primary and fundamental law of 
growth is " Everything after its kind," and six 
thousand years of recorded observation have fur- 
nished no exception to this law. 

Growth is the gradual accumulation of such 

particles as now constitute the animal or plant. 

It is an established principle in philosophy that 

evolution and involution are equal to each other. 

9 



130 The Doctrine of Entire Sanctifieation. 

Hence, there can be nothing evolved that is not 
first involved. Therefore, while holiness admits 
of both growth and culture, it cannot be a product 
of either one or the other. 

But the assumption that holiness is attained 
by growth is involved in another difficulty. 
Growth never changes the nature of anything. 
A tree or animal is such not because of its dimen- 
sions, but because of its natural qualities. Growth 
never changes one animal or tree to one of another 
kind. It requires more than size to constitute an 
elephant ; there must be the nature and qualities ; 
without these the fact is impossible by any process. 

A sinner cannot grow into a state of regenera- 
tion. " Except a man be born again he cannot see 
the kingdom of God." No more can a regenerate 
person become perfectly holy by growth. If there 
is any impurity lingering in the moral nature 
after conversion, it cannot be displaced by growth. 
However vigorous the growth may be, it is only 
the development of the life which is imparted in 
regeneration; the growth cannot add one single 
quality to his moral nature. 

The growth of the apple-tiee does not destroy 
the caterpillars. Under the most favorable circum- 
stances it can only repair the waste they have 



Holiness not Attained by Growth. 131 

made of the foliage. The growth of the vine does 
not destroy the Colorado beetle. It is the Paris 
green administered by the gardener's hand that 
removes the destructive vermin. The same nat- 
ural law applies to the establishment of Christian 
life and manhood. The Christ-life is begotten of 
the Holy Ghost; grace applied purges the believer 
of his external habits of a sinful life ; grace puri- 
fies the heart and makes the life holy and fruitful. 

But the theory of holiness by the growth process 
is involved in another fatal difficulty. Growth 
does not change the relation of things. Law gives 
precedence to the first occupant. Wheat is never 
sown in the forests to remove the underbrush and 
uproot the giant oaks. These occupy by right of 
inheritance. Not one instance of displacement by 
growth is on record in the history of the world in 
the realm of nature or of grace. 

For years after the forests have been felled the 
stumps of massive trees remain in the best culti- 
vated fields, scarred and blackened by the laborer's 
hand, demonstrating the fact that the growth of 
the most valuable crops by the most scientific 
culture can never eradicate the roots of the original 
occupants of the soil. 

Sin is indigenous to the human heart; it has 



132 The Doctrine of Entire Sanctification. 

precedence by nature. Though a usurper, it occu- 
pies by natural descent, and the Norwegian forests 
could as easily be removed by the introduction of 
the fragrant magnolia from the banks of the Mis- 
sissippi, or the dense forests of North America 
extirpated by transferring to their midst the stately 
palm from the Syrian wastes, as sin could be dis- 
placed from its native soil by the introduction of 
the Christian graces. If sin remain in the soul 
after conversion, in the form of impurity, it can 
never be removed by growth. The assumption 
that holiness as a form of religious experience is 
attained by growth, in whole or in part, is without 
evidence in Scripture or philosophy. 

The advocates of this theory fail to discern be- 
tween purity and size. The Scripture teaches us 
that holiness is essential in order to enter heaven, 
and it is a perversion of fact to assume that either 
size or age have been recognized as conditions of 
citizenship in the heavenly land. The babe of 
only one day's existence on the earth is saved. 
And if there are degrees in the Divine effort, its 
salvation is more easily accomplished than the sal- 
vation of Methuselah, and He can save the smallest 
soul that scintillates with immortality as easily as 
He could save Daniel or Paul. Size is nothing 



Holiness not Attained by Growth. 133 

with God, " who filleth immensity." Age is no- 
thing with God, who is "from everlasting to ever- 
lasting;;" but "without holiness no man shall see 
the Lord." 

Therefore, if it should appear that the vital part 
of man's salvation, the one essential quality with- 
out which he cannot enter heaven, is a product of 
growth, is it not all by development? There is a 
law of logic that the greater is always presumed 
to contain the lesser. We are in danger here of 
a fatal delusion. If heart purity is possible by 
growth, pardon and life are both possible by the 
same process. If salvation is by development, the 
redemptive agencies are all pushed aside, and the 
priesthood of Jesus Christ and the personality of 
the Holy Ghost swept entirely from the field. 
The theory of holiness by growth originated in 
the misapprehension of all the facts in the case. 
The advocates of that idea fail to distinguish 
between development and redemption, — between 
growth and salvation. Furthermore, they do not 
discriminate between purity and maturity, — be- 
tween the process by which the soul is cleansed 
from all native impurity and that by which the 
believer is built up in holiness and advanced to a 
state of ripeness. 



134 The Doctrine of Entire Sanctification. 

In all cases where the Scripture speaks of growth 
in grace, in all allusions to Christian character or 
manhood, there is a clear distinction made between 
these states and holiness of heart. The one refers 
to Christian attainment, to the advancement in 
Divine life, the other to that act of sovereign grace 
by which God saves a soul from sin. 

The believer grows into a state of maturity, — 
he "goes on" to a state of ripeness; but when it 
is only the fact of salvation that is involved, no- 
thing but Almighty power can save a soul. No 
man ever did, or ever will, grow by any process 
whatever one jot or tittle of his salvation. 

Entire sanctification, according to the standards 
of the Methodist Episcopal Church, is the removal 
of the hereditary impurity that remains in the 
soul after conversion; this taint never has been, 
never can be, eliminated by growth. The Christian 
who does not forfeit his justification and sonship, 
and who continues to grow in grace, will get the 
victory over all outward and all inward sin; he 
may be able to vanquish temptation at all times, 
but the Adamic impurity that lingers in the moral 
nature after conversion yields only to the " Blood 
that cleanseth from all sin." Sanctification is a 
process of purification. Neither the word in its 



Holiness not Attained by Growth. 135 

original form nor any of its derivatives or syno- 
nyms denote growth; it has no regard to age or 
development; it refers alone to moral quality. 
Hagiazo signifies "to purify." It is not the act 
of consecration, not setting apart for holy use, but 
the cleansing of that which is already set apart or 
consecrated to holy use. 

That the sanctification of the soul is in a large 
measure accomplished in regeneration we are glad 
to admit. All Methodist standards entertain this 
view, but with equal force they insist that entire 
sanctification is subsequent to regeneration and is 
wrought by the Holy Ghost; while those who 
entertain the growth theory, like the foolish Gala- 
tians, though they began in the Spirit, " they now 
seek to be made perfect by the flesh." 

The conclusion is irresistible that, if the primary 
stages of salvation are by the operation of the 
Holy Ghost, every finishing touch must be by the 
same agent. If it requires the energy of the Holy 
Ghost to raise a soul from the death of sin and 
bring it into a state of initial salvation, nothing 
but Almighty power can complete the work. 
" Faithful is he that calleth you who also will do 
it." "The Lord thy God will circumcise thine 
heart and the heart of thy seed to love the Lord 



136 The Doctrine of Entire Sanetifieation. 

thy God with all thine heart and with all thy soul 
that thou mayest live." Thus Scripture and phil- 
osophy teach that the experience of heart purity is 
wrought by the Holy Ghost, and as God works 
for the salvation of men by the going forth of His 
Divine power, He works instantaneously; and as 
growth is a process involving time, entire sanctifi- 
cation cannot be a product of growth. 



Holiness not Imputed. 137 



CHAPTEE XX. 
HOLINESS NOT IMPUTED. 

" IMPUTATION is used in the Scriptures to 
J- designate any action, word or thing, as ac- 
counted or reckoned to a person ; and in all these 
it is unquestionably used with reference to one's 
own doings, words" or actions, and not with refer- 
ence to those of a second person. The word im- 
putation is, however, used for a certain theological 
theory which teaches (1) that the sin of Adam is 
so attributed to man as to be considered in the 
Divine counsels as his own and render him guilty 
of it; (2) that in the Christian plan of salvation 
the righteousness of Christ is so attributed to man 
as to be considered his own, and he is therefore 
justified by it." 

This doctrine is formulated by one of its advo- 
cates as follows : " To impute sin is to deal with 
a man as a sinner, not on account of his own act, 
or at least not primarily on this account, but on 
account of the act of another; and to impute 
righteousness is to deal with a man as righteous, 



138 The Doctrine of Entire Sandification. 

not because he is so, but on account of the right- 
eousness of Christ, reckoned as his, and received 
by faith alone. The act of another stands in 
both cases for our own act, and we are adjudged 
in the one case condemned, in the other acquitted, 
not for what we ourselves have done, but for 
what another has done for us." 

This view of the method of the Divine proce- 
dure has become closely identified with the evan- 
gelism of the last decade, and diffused itself 
through the church, and finds utterance in the 
teaching and experience of professors of holiness. 

The affirmation is that we are perfectly holy in 
Christ, but that He has no ability to communicate 
his holiness to man's moral nature, so as to make 
him personally holy. 

The teachers of this theory assume great sanc- 
tity and affect an unnatural humility. They tes- 
tify that they are "pure in Christ," but that "in 
themselves they are full of all uncleanness." 
They affirm : " In Christ we have perfect hon- 
esty, chastity, temperance and meekness, and we 
should be guilty of Pharisaic insolence if we 
should attempt to patch His perfection with the 
filthy rags of our own personal holiness." 

The fatality of this error lies in the assumption 



Holiness not Imputed. 139 

that we are excused from inherent and personal 
conformity to God's law and participation in his 
moral purity because Christ is pure for us. 

The trend of this system of thought is to im- 
morality. It sets godliness aside, and develops 
some of the grosser forms of impurity in some 
who profess to be wholly the Lord's. One of the 
legitimate sequents of this error is, — " The man 
who is in Christ Jesus cannot sin; therefore all 
things are lawful to him, because he is in Christ." 
And the fruits of this error lie like a withering 
blight upon the Church in some localities. 

The Bible teaches us that there is a more inti- 
mate relation existing between the true believer 
and Christ than can be expressed by a legal bond. 
Jesus symbolized this by the marriage-bond that 
constitutes the husband and wife "one flesh." 
Again he says : " Whoso eateth my flesh and 
drinketh my blood hath eternal life ;" " He that 
eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood dwelleth 
in me and I in him ;" and " As the living Father 
hath sent me and I live by the Father, so he that 
eateth me shall live by me." He also illustrates 
this union by the vine and its branches. The 
life that is in the vine is the same life that is in 
the branch, preserving it from decay, and giving it 



140 The Doctrine of Entire Sanctification. 

verdure and fruitfulness. " Christ in you the hope 
of glory " is the theme of the apostle's preaching. 
" Christ dwelling in the heart by faith," not as 
a rhetorical figure, but as a living personality, is 
the fountain from which all spiritual life and 
power are derived. As nature in her boundless 
resources is the store-house from which the vine 
appropriates the primary elements which it, by 
the chemical power of light, transmutes into its 
own fibre and fruit, so also is Jesus Christ in His 
atoning merit the source from which the believer 
brings forth the elements of life and purity which, 
by the alchemy of the Holy Ghost, are transformed 
into the fibre and fruitage of a holy life. In the 
natural world the plant is in the earth and in the air ; 
it dwells in both, and draws its supplies from the 
earth and from the air. These primary elements 
meet in the leaf of the plant, and by the chemical 
agency of light and the vitalizing energy of the 
plant become the essential and constituent properties 
of the plant. This is a natural illustration of what 
is implied by being " in Christ." By a Divine pro- 
cess of assimilation the life and purity of Jesus 
Christ are imparted to the believer, and holiness 
of heart and life become the personal, inherent 
and constituent qualities of his spiritual nature. 



Holiness More than Repression of Evil. 141 

CHAPTEE XXI. 
HOLINESS MORE THAN THE REPRESSION OF EVIL. 

THERE has arisen within the last few years a 
popular, but delusive and dangerous heresy, 
which has spread like invisible leaven through a 
large portion of the church. It is recognized as 
the "repressive theory of holiness." It asserts 
with great boldness that the most the Holy Ghost 
can do for man in this life is to hedge him about 
with the Divine protection, repress his evil tenden- 
cies and keep him circumscribed within the limits 
of morality aud virtue. 

The advocates of this theory teach that in the 
best possible state of grace attainable here the 
heart is full of corruption. This theory assumes 
that the Holy Ghost cannot remove the native 
impurity from the human soul, but that "He 
chokes down the depraved nature into a quiescent 
state." 

This view of the subject of holiness is out of 
harmony with the recorded experiences of sancti- 
fied persons in the past and in the present. In 



142 The Doctrine of Entire Sanctification. 

all the history of the church the oral or the re- 
corded testimonies of those who have experienced 
entire sanctification has been that the " blood 
cleanseth from all sin ; " that Jesus in His Divine 
personality removes the natural pollution of sin 
from the soul and gives to the believer a conscious- 
ness of internal purity. We object to this doc- 
trine still further, because it does not agree with 
either the Old or the New Testament teaching on 
this subject. "And I will sanctify my great 
name, which was profaned among the heathen, 
which ye have profaned in the midst of them, and 
the heathen shall know that I am the Lord, saith 
the Lord God, when I shall be sanctified in you 
before their eyes. For I will take you from 
among the heathen and gather you out of all 
countries and will bring you into your own land. 
Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you and ye 
shall be clean ; from all your filthiness and from ail 
your idols will I cleanse you. A new heart and new 
spirit will I put within you, and I will take away 
the stony (not repress it) out of your flesh, and I 
will give you a heart of flesh, and I will put my 
Spirit within you and cause you to walk in my 
statutes and ye shall keep my judgments and do 
them." And the Apostle, speaking to the same 



Holiness More than Repression of Evil. 143 

point, says : " Knowing this that our old man is 
crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be 
destroyed, that henceforth we might not serve sin." 
There is no legitimate interpretation of these 
Scripture quotations that gives any support to the 
doctrine of salvation by repression. It would 
sound strangely to hear it so read as to inculcate 
this view, — " Knowing this that our old man is 
repressed, he is tied down and placed in seclusion, 
and he whose evil nature is repressed is freed from 
sin." 

The doctrine of repression is not only unscrip- 
tural and contrary to religious experience, but it 
is unphilosophical, and impeaches the Divine 
character. " Holiness in man is the same in kind 
as holiness in God." Therefore, as God is essen- 
tial purity, to the extent that man becomes "a 
partaker of the Divine nature " he is essentially 
holy. 

" God is holiness and righteousness." He has 
no evil in Himself and He cannot suffer it to ex- 
ist with His approval in His creatures. Lange 
says : " Light is the element of God and the being 
of God." In the natural world air is man's life- 
element. He lives in it and by it. In a spiritual 
sense, light, the Divine life of God, must become 



144 The Doctrine of Entire Sanctification. 

the "element of man's spiritual life before and in 
order that it may become his moral being" 

If any one is dreaming of entering a holy heaven 
to dwell with the holy angels in the presence of a 
holy God, with inbred sin in his heart, even though 
it be held in a state of "repression" by the Holy 
Ghost, his dream will prove a delusion and a snare. 

But if repression is God's method of dealing 
with evil, there is no difference between virtue 
and holiness, and legal morality supersedes the 
necessity for that life and holiness that are in 
Christ Jesus. It is not in good taste to say that 
God is virtuous or morally upright. We do not 
use the term virtuous in reference to the holy 
angels, and it is nowhere said of the blood-washed 
company John saw about the throne that they 
were moral or virtuous. We reject the divinity 
of the Lord Jesus Christ when by direct statement 
or influence we attribute to Him only virtue. He 
is nowhere in the Bible called a Divine Repressor. 
" His name is called Jesus, for he saves his people 
from their sins." Virtue is the natural excel- 
lence of a man as tested by law. Virtue and 
holiness are not the same. Virtue is the practice of 
duty according to the established standard of 
right. It always has reference to actions. 



Holiness More than Repression of Evil. 145 

Holiness is purity of substance, and always has 
regard to quality. When applied to the Supreme 
Being it denotes that perfection of purity that is 
His moral nature. When applied to man, holi 
ness is relative and derived, and implies that 
quality of the spiritual nature which exists in him 
after the Holy Ghost has eliminated the impurity 
that was left in him-at his conversion. According 
to the repressionists, the distinction between virtue 
and holiness is obliterated, and moral purity, as 
an essential quality of the soul, is made impossible. 

If God can only repress the evil nature in man, 
he must forever remain outside of heaven or enter 
that holy place in a state of pollution. 

If sin exists now as a quality of a fallen soul, it 
must be entirely eradicated before man can be- 
come a partaker of the Divine nature. It must be 
destroyed or remain forever. Sin in a state of re- 
pression is sin. The carnal mind, though in a 
state of repression, "is enmity against God/' The 
carnal mind is not at enmity, but is essentially 
" enmity." " It is not subject to his law, neither in- 
deed can be." Repression does not change the 
nature of the carnal mind any more than the 
prisoner's cell changes his heart. As the bars of 
his cell confine the criminal and keep him from 
10 



146 The Doctrine of Entire Sanctification. 

overt acts of wickedness, repression, when it 
has gone to the utmost extent of its power, can 
only restrain the carnal nature within legal 
bounds. We conclude, therefore, that the carnal 
nature must be destroyed or forever remain in 
opposition to God. 

Furthermore, if the Holy Ghost cannot extir- 
pate original sin now and here, He can never do it. 
Omnipotence does not admit of possible increase. 
Therefore if the Holy Ghost cannot eliminate all 
sin by the blood of atonement, already complete, 
the Bible is not true. The apostle says: "But 
if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we 
have fellowship one with another, and the blood 
of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanseth us from all sin" 
If the Godhead and the contrite believer are help- 
less for complete salvation, instantaneously the 
adversary is still the victor and must forever re- 
main so, for if repression be true, he is the stronger 
party. 

When we speak of holiness " it is not abstinence 
from outward deeds of profligacy alone ; it is not a 
mere recoil from impurity in thought. It is that 
quick and sensitive delicacy to which even the 
very conception of evil is offensive. It is a virtue 
which has its residence within j which takes 



Holiness More than Repression of Evil. 147 

guardianship of the heart as of a citadel or invio- 
late sanctuary, in which no wrong or worthless 
imagination is permitted to dwell. It is not 
purity of action that we contend for ; it is exalted 
purity of heart, — the eternal purity of the third 
heaven. And if it is at once settled in the 
heart, it brings the peace, the triumph and 
the untroubled serenity of heaven along with 
it, — I had almost said the pride of a great 
moral victory over the infirmities of an earthly 
and accursed nature. There is a health and a har- 
mony in the soul ; a beauty which, though it ef- 
floresces in the countenance and the outward path, 
is itself so thoroughly internal as to make purity 
of heart the most distinctive evidence of a work of 
grace in time, — the most distinctive guidance of a 
character that is ripening and expanding for the 
glories of eternity." — Chalmers, in Foster's Ency- 
clopcedia. 



148 The Doctrine of Entire Sandijication. 



CHAPTEE XXII. 

HOLINESS WROUGHT INSTANTANEOUSLY IN THE 
FULFILLMENT OF A COVENANT PROMISE OF 
GOD. 

HHHE Prophet Jeremiah speaks of completed 
4- salvation being wrought in the soul in the 
fulfillment of a Divine promise, — " Behold the 
days will come when I will make a new covenant 
with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. 
Not according to the covenant I made with their 
fathers when I took them by the hand to lead 
them out of the land of Egypt. . . . But this 
shall be the covenant I will make with the house 
of Israel after those days, saith the Lord ; I will 
put my law in their inward parts and write it in 
their hearts, and I will be their God, and they 
shall be my people." And the apostle, in his 
epistle to the Hebrews, quotes this covenant 
promise in full, showing that the High Priest, who 
went into the Holy of Holies once each year with 
blood which He offered for Himself and for the 
errors of the people, was a type of Christ, who, 



Holiness Wrought Instantaneously. 149 

" being come an high priest of good things to come, 
by a greater and more perfect tabernacle not made 
with hands, — that is to say, not of this building, — 
neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by 
His own blood He entered in once into the holy 
place, having obtained eternal redemption for us. 
For if the blood of bulls and of goats and the 
ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean sancti- 
fieth to the purifying of the flesh, how much 
more shall the blood of Christ, who, through the 
eternal Spirit, offered Himself without spot unto 
God, purge your conscience from dead works 
to serve the living God ! . . . . For when Closes 
had spoken every precept to all the people, he 
took the blood of calves and of goats, with water, 
and scarlet wool and hyssop, and sprinkled both 
the book and all the people, saving, this is the 
blood of the testament God hath enjoined unto 
you, . . . and almost all things are by the 
law purged with blood, and without shedding of 
blood there is no remission. It was therefore 
necessary that the patterns of things in the heavens 
should be purified with these, but the heavenly 
things themselves with better sacrifices than these, 
for Christ is not entered in the holy places made 
with hands, which are the figures of the true, but 



150 The Doctrine of Entire Sandification. 

into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence 
of God for us. . . . So Christ was once offered 
to bear the sins of many, and unto them that look 
for Him shall He appear the second time without 
sin unto salvation" 

These passages of Scripture reveal to us the fact 
that sanctification is secured through the merito- 
rious interposition of a Divine High Priest. 

This fact is evaded or overlooked by all classes 
of gradualists. For, if this is accepted as the Di- 
vine method of salvation, any process of salvation 
by growth or by disciplinary agencies is an impossi- 
bility. In his revelation of the Divine method 
the apostle carries the thought of the reader into 
the holy of holies, — that invisible realm where no 
eye ever dimmed before its blazing brilliancy, that 
mysterious place of profound secrecy where God 
and the High Priest transact the business of the 
mediatorial office. He reveals to us with great 
care the fact that every part of man's salvation is 
accomplished in that secret presence, and from 
within that secret precinct issues the destiny of 
immortal souls. The salvation of each individ- 
ual soul is a matter of covenant agreement, and he 
who takes it into his own arrogant hands is guilty 
of idolatry, whether he seek it by the attrition of 



Holiness Wrought Instantaneously. 151 

the furnace or by the more reasonable and humane 
method of growth. 

The relation of man to God as a sinner, and his 
dependence upon Jesus as his mediator, makes 
gradual salvation impossible at any point of its 
progress. The primary and fundamental fact that 
makes salvation possible by any method is " that 
the Father hath accepted the Son in that which He 
hath done for us/' And being thus accepted, and 
in His official capacity at the right hand of God as 
an advocate transacting the business of the alien- 
ated parties, " He is now exalted to be a prince and 
a Saviour/' which He could not be if His atone- 
ment once made for all was not already accepted. 
And God could not have accepted the sacrifice if 
it were not perfect and satisfactory ; and if it is 
accepted, it is efficacious in securing full salvation 
to every one who will accept Christ in this Divine 
relationship. If the Father is satisfied and has ac- 
cepted the offering, man only has to accept and 
receive that which is already efficacious. 

" No man cometh to the Father except by me/' 
for the cross of Christ is " the meeting-place for 
all the attributes of the Godhead and all the at- 
tributes of Christ's princely manhood." "For it 
pleased the Father that in Him should all fulness 



152 The Doctrine of Entire Sanctification. 

dwell, and having made peace through the blood 
of His cross, by Him to reconcile all things unto 
himself, by Him I say, whether they be things in 
earth or things in heaven." 

Therefore, while the Son occupies the mediato- 
rial throne, a sceptre of mercy is extended to all ; 
and the Father being satisfied with what the Son 
has done, cannot withhold His promised blessing 
from any one who accepts Jesus in His official re- 
lationship of Saviour. 

The apostle was endeavoring to show the He- 
brew Christians that complete salvation was accom- 
plished by a Divine act, — an act made possible only 
through the priestly merit of the Lord Jesus Christ. 

If we accept the fulness of the. atonement and 
claim that all are equal in the covenant of redemp- 
tion, to be consistent we must also accept the fact 
that the meritorious sacrifice of Christ not only 
embraces the multitude numerically, but it must 
with equal force provide for every separate want 
of each individual that makes up the whole num- 
ber. Every sinful act, every impurity, every in- 
firmity, every heartache and every sorrow must 
find its antidote ; and every moral and spir- 
itual want of every descendant of Adam find 
its supply in the offering of Calvary. 



Holiness Wrought Instantaneously. 153 

The High Priest bore upon his rnitre the hal- 
lowed inscription " Holiness to the Lord." But 
he entered his holy office by a two-fold experience. 
A sacred rite of consecration separated him from 
all outward impurity, and by it he was inducted 
into the first order of the priesthood ; after this, by 
another solemn rite, in which he was anointed with 
a holy " oil of consecration," he received authority 
to exercise the office of the High Priesthood. 

Jesus entered the office of the High Priesthood 
in the same way. The Baptist conferred upon 
Him the first order of the priesthood at the Jordan 
by sprinkling upon Him the " water of separation," 
and immediately " God poured upon Him " the 
Holy Ghost, which was symbolized by the precious 
ointment put upon Aaron and his successors, 
which rite was continued among the Jews for fif- 
teen hundred years, and by this rite Jesus was made 
" an High Priest forever, after the order of Mel- 
chisedee," " and being come an High Priest, He, 
through the eternal Spirit, offered himself once for 
all, and hath perfected forever them that are sanc- 
tified, whereof the Holy Ghost is witness unto us " 
" But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God 
is made unto us wisdom, righteousness, sanctifica- 
tion and redemption." 



154 The Doctrine of Entire Sanctification. 

Sanctification, therefore, as an act, is accomplished 
by our great High Priest, and the Holy Ghost 
makes it an experimental fact in the soul. Thus 
the covenant act of holiness becomes a matter of 
personal experience in the heart by the agency of 
the Holy Ghost. 

Entire sanctification is only predicated of those 
who are regenerated, for in the nature of the 
case there must be successive stages in the process 
of salvation. 

When the seeking soul purposes to be holy the 
action of the will changes all the relations of the 
soul and the obedient seeker submits cheerfully 
to the process of purification. 

The advent of the Holy Ghost to the heart 
changes the condition, changes the moral qual- 
ity of the soul, — changes it from ignorant and 
arrogant insensibility to an intelligent, intense 
self-abhorrence, and the earnest seeker, rejecting 
every subterfuge, accepts, without compromise or 
stipulation, the blood of cleansing as applied by 
the Holy Ghost. 

But as salvation is by covenant and promise, and 
man is a responsible agent, God cannot coerce the 
individual. If any one will be saved perfectly, 
he must comply with the terms of the promise. 



Holiness Wrought Instantaneously. 155 

There must be a desire for this salvation and an 
effort made to obtain it. Paul says, u For unto 
them that look for Him shall He appear the second 
time without sin unto salvation." 

Salvation, through the eternal priesthood of 
Jesus Christ, establishes the truth of two proposi- 
tions, — 

(1) That holiness by the attrition of our pro- 
bational surroundings is an idolatrous conception. 
2 That holiness by growth is a delusion and 
a snare. 



156 The Doctrine of Entire Sanctification. 



CHAPTEE XXIII. 

NATURE AND NECESSITY OF CONSECRATION. 

THE term consecrate signifies " to separate to," 
" to devote to," " to set apart for holy uses." 

Some teachers use it to signify all that is im- 
plied in entire sanctification. 

But the sense in which it is used in the Bible 
indicates only the keeping of the covenant of sal- 
vation by the seeker. 

The Apostle John says, " But if we walk in 
the light, as He is in the light, we have fellow- 
ship one with another, and the blood of Jesus 
Christ, His Son, cleanseth us from all sin." 

This Scripture is addressed to those who are al- 
ready Christians ; it can have no possible appli- 
cation to those who are unregenerate. " If we 
walk/' — dead men never walk. " Walking in 
the light," in a spiritual sense, is a feat that is 
possible only to living Christians. Life always 
precedes locomotion. By a law as inflexible as 
the eternal throne, everything in the realm of na- 
ture, whether it be matter or spirit, must have 



Nature and Necessity of Consecration. 157 

life before it can possess the power of motion ; and 
as the experience of heart purity is obtained while 
walking in the Divine fellowship, and retained 
only so long as the believer sustains, unembar- 
rassed, this holy relationship, it cannot be coetane- 
ous with regeneration, but must be subsequent to 
that event. 

Holiness comes after pardon, but not as a se- 
quent of pardon ; it is wrought by Divine power. 
" The blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanseth 
us from all sin ;'' therefore, if any would obtain 
this great blessing, they must cease to revolve about 
any former experience and move directly for- 
ward in the light of God, and there must be 
an intelligent consecration of the entire being to 
God. It is not a pledge to do more work or bet- 
ter work for God. Consecration implies a com- 
plete surrender to God, — to be His, for time and 
for eternity. In this act the candidate for holiness 
devotes to God every power and faculty, every 
capability, impulse and energy ; everything he is 
and hopes to be, in this life and the life to come, 
goes over to God in the covenant of full salvation. 

This is a work so solemn and so comprehensive, 
and brings the soul into such intimate relations 
with God, that we instinctively approach it with 



158 The Doctrine of Entire Sandification. 

the profoundest reverence. We stand in this awe- 
inspiring presence, as Moses stood before the 
burning bush, with bared brow and unsandaled 
feet. We enter here with a holy caution, as the 
High Priest went within the sacred vail. 

There can be nothing more repulsive to a re- 
fined nature, nothing more out of harmony with 
good taste, than the irreverent manner in which 
some speak about consecration and the blood of 
the Son of God. We are often pained at the 
thoughtless and irreverent manner in which some 
appear to rush into the presence of God. 
And occasionally we find those who insist 
upon consecrating their sins, their unholy appe- 
tites, their filthy idols, to God. In the contract 
for holiness the candidate is to surrender all sin- 
fulness, — things that are to be slain cannot be 
consecrated. " Having, therefore, these promises, 
dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all 
filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holi- 
ness in the fear of God." 

When all sinful practices are abandoned, and 
every unholy purpose put away, the seeker after 
holiness comes to the place where it is possible for 
him to obey the Divine command, and " present 
his body a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to 



Nature and Necessity of Consecration. 159 

God, which is his reasonable service." His lan- 
guage, then, is, — 

" Take my life and let it be 
Consecrated, Lord, to Thee ; 
Take my feet and let them move 
At the impulse of Thy Love. 
Lord, I give to Thee my life and all, to be 
Thine henceforth eternally." 

In this covenant there is no keeping back part 
of the price. Head, heart, hands, feet, intellect, 
affections and will, wealth, position and influence, 
— everything, without equivocation or mental 
reservation, goes on to the altar of obedience. 
This necessarily makes a second crisis in the 
religious experience, — a second preparation, which 
is an essential step to a distinct second work of 
grace in the heart. 

It is not reasonable that a sinner returning to 
God from a life of sinfulness should be able to 
comprehend the nature of complete consecration. 
He is flying from the flashing terrors of the law, 
and in his haste the possibilities of grace have not 
arrested his attention. It is the removal of guilt 
and the restoration of peace that now occupy his 
mind to the exclusion .of all else. 

When Israel left the land of bondage there was 
a special preparation necessary for their departure. 



160 The Doctrine of Entire Sanctification. 

The Paschal lamb, the bitter herbs, the unleavened 
bread and all the incidents of their spoiling the 
Egyptians are narrated ; and this constitutes an 
epoch in the history of that people. But years 
afterward, when they came to the banks of the 
Jordan, and God commanded them to go over and 
possess the land, another special preparation was 
made, in every particular different from the 
former. "And Joshua commanded the officers, 
saying, pass through the host and command the 
people, saying, Prepare you victuals, for within 
three days ye shall pass over this Jordan to go 
in to possess the land which the Lord thy God 
giveth you to possess it." The preparation for 
the accomplishment of these two distinct events 
was as different as the events themselves. Israel's 
departure from Egypt was a release from bondage ; 
it was a deliverance from service, from degrada- 
tion, from the pain of the taskmaster's cruel stripes. 
It contemplated a life of freedom and happiness, 
of improvement and progress. His advent into 
Canaan implied the possession of the land. 
" Every place that the sole of your foot shall 
tread upon, that have I given unto you, as I said 
unto Moses." The possession of the land con- 
templated the development of its resources, the 



Nature and Necessity of Consecration. 161 

establishment of a nation whose regal sceptre 
should be acknowledged by all peoples, and whose 
magnificence and glory should be the admiration 
of all the world. 

And the surrender of a sinner to God, with the 
plea of mercy upon his lips, is not like the prepa- 
ration of the believer which he must make in order 
that he may enter the Canaan of perfect love. 
The events are not similar ; the preparation must 
be different. 

These distinctive stages have been recognized 
by the Fathers as one of the distinguishing char- 
acteristics of Methodism. The founders of the 
church put it into our hymns, and we have sung 
it for more than one hundred years. The purest 
utterances of the pulpit, the most eloquent state- 
ments of the official press, have voiced this fact 
to the world, and we continue to repeat the glow- 
ing words of Charles Wesley, — 

" Breathe, oh breathe, Thy loving Spirit 
Into every troubled breast ; 
Let us all in Thee inherit, 
Let us find that second rest. 

" Take away my bent to sinning, 
Alpha and Omega be, 
End of faith, as its beginning, 
Set our hearts at liberty.' ' 

11 



162 The Doctrine of Entire Sandijication. 

Those who reject the fact of a second crisis in 
the religious experience assume that the sinner 
makes a complete consecration when he seeks the 
Lord in the pardon of his sins. They insist that, 
in order to secure pardon, all he is and has must 
go upon the altar, and that if he do not backslide 
and forfeit his standing with God, a new or better 
consecration is neither necessary nor possible. A 
little discrimination will obviate all embarrassment 
at that point. A penitent sinner, whether peasant 
or king, whether unlearned or scholarly, surrenders 
to God without stipulation. The language of his 
heart is, — 

" Here, Lord, I give myself to Thee, 
Tis all that I can do." 

And that is all a merciful God requires or that 
justice demands; there is nothing else possible to 
him. He is a criminal flying from the penalties 
of violated law. He can make but one plea ; he 
seeks mercy at the hand of his offended God. He 
is an outlaw, so far as his own merit is concerned ; 
he is "dead in trespasses and in sin," and he sur- 
renders to God, seeks reconciliation through Jesus 
Christ, because he is helpless of self-recovery. 
God receives, pardons, adopts and makes him a 
child of a king; it is all through His infinite 



Nature and Necessity of Consecration. 163 

compassion that a return is possible and a pardon 
secured and the spirit made alive from the death 
of sin. 

And now, because the relations of the parties are 
all changed, and there are new environments and 
new opportunities and increased obligations, God 
calls upon him to recognize his new surroundings 
and, as an obedient son, consecrate to His service 
this new life, these regenerated powers, this re- 
deemed and renewed manhood, with all its new 
powers, energies and future capabilities. " To pre- 
sent his body a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to 
God, which is his reasonable service." 

Nothing less than this constitutes a believer's 
consecration, and no unconverted person can con- 
ceive of such a relation to God, as is implied in 
this covenant, or make a believer's consecration. 

This second crisis, which brings the believer 
into new relations with God, places him where 
cleansing from hereditary sin becomes possible, 
when the covenanted salvation may become to him 
an experimental fact. 

The candidate for holiness, having become honest 
with God and man, having passed the region of 
speculation and abandoned all his own theories 
and given up all thought as to how God will pro- 



164 The Doctrine of Entire Sanctification. 

ceed to save him, or how he will feel, or how he 
will act, has but one more step to take. He must 
receive Jesus for the specific work of cleansing, — 
receive Him as his sanctification. Now, salvation 
by faith is always in the present tense. The faith 
that secures salvation can never be prospective; it 
is now. 

Faith does not begin here. Faith has been 
the moving power on the human side. Faith has 
brought the seeker all the way, and the effort must 
now focalize and accept Jesus for this complete 
work of cleansing; do this and you cannot fail. 

" Faith lends her realizing light, 

The clouds disperse, the shadows fly, 
The invisible appears in sight, 
And God is seen by mortal eye." 



Entire Sanctification by the Holy Ghost. 1G5 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

ENTIRE SANCTIFICATION AN INSTANTANEOUS 
WORK WROUGHT BY THE HOLY GHOST. 

SANCTIFICATION is "the act of God's grace 
by which the affections of men are purified 
from sin and exalted to a supreme love to God " 
(Webster). Entire is a qualifying term, which 
signifies completeness, " comprising all requisites 
in itself." According to this definition, entire 
sanctification is a state of unalloyed purity of 
heart, a condition of completed renovation of the 
moral nature. 

Anything is instantaneous that is done at once, 
" occurring without any perceptible succession/' 
"as the passage of electricity through any given 
space." 

The embarrassments that environ this subject 
would all disappear if we would be accurate in the 
use of terms, giving to each its place and signifi- 
cance. 

The Bible speaks of a state of grace denominated 
by the term sanctification and its equivalents, — 



166 The Doctrine of Entire Sanctification. 

holiness and heart purity. Neither these terms nor 
their derivatives are ever used interchangeably 
with the word regeneration. And as believers are 
commanded to "Be holy/' we conclude that entire 
sanctification is a part of man's complete salvation, 
which is not accomplished in regeneration. It is 
a second definite work, distinct, but never separate, 
from regeneration, and occurring subsequent to 
that event. It is not merely "a second blessing," 
but a change wrought in the substance of the soul 
by the agency of the Holy Spirit. In harmony 
with these preliminary statements, we formulate 
our final affirmative proposition : Sanctification is 
not reached by a disciplinary process ; it is not a 
product of growth; it is not attainable by any 
gradual process whatever, but it is an instantaneous 
change wrought in the soul by the Spirit of God. 

However slowly the preparation may go for- 
ward, however tortuous the pathway of approach 
to God, when it comes to the matter of entire 
salvation, that is the work of God, and is done 
without perceptible succession. 

Let us approach this question by another line 
of thought. If sin is an instantaneous act, salva- 
tion must be an instantaneous process. All theo- 
logians and metaphysicians concede the fact that 



Entire Sandification by the Holy Ghost. 167 

an overt act of sin is an event in which there is no 
perceptible succession ; hence the results of sin upon 
the essential qualities of the soul ensue at once. 

History, philosophy and experience support this 
view. However slowly our first parents approached 
the fatal act, however insidious the process of 
temptation, the culmination was sudden; guilt 
ensued at once; spiritual death was as complete 
when God was excluded from the soul and Satan 
enthroned within as physical death would be if 
every drop of blood were extracted from the body 
and the vascular system filled with prussic acid. 

And the pollution of the soul was as instanta- 
neous as the spiritual death. We cannot conceive 
of any lapse of time between the event of spiritual 
death and the contamination of the spiritual na- 
ture ; they emanate from the same cause, and as 
death ensued at once, the pollution of the moral 
nature was an instantaneous occurrence. When 
Satan entered the human heart he seized every 
organ and faculty, and diffused himself through 
every fibre and tissue of soul and body ; and that 
temple, which was so recently the dwelling-place 
of the Holy Spirit, suddenly became the habita- 
tion of every unclean and vile thing. 

The process of salvation, the perfect renovation 



168 The Doctrine of Entire Sanctification. 

of the moral nature, the restoration of the entire 
man to a state of perfect harmony with God, the 
establishment of the forfeited relations of confi- 
dence and fellowship with God, and the imparta- 
tion of all the moral qualities of the Divine nature 
to the soul must be by a reversal of the process 
by which the ruin was accomplished. As stated 
elsewhere, there must be the full consent of the 
party that God shall come in, the heart must be 
flung open and the Divine visitor made a welcome 
guest, and there must be rendered a willing and 
cheerful obedience to all His commands and re- 
quirements. 

It is a fact of universal experience that when 
the penitent sinner complies with the condition on 
which the promise is based, God pardons at once, 
the Holy Ghost enters and quickens the dead soul 
into a new spiritual life, and when the seeker 
after purity fulfills the conditions of the promise, 
as suddenly as Satan defiled the human heart by 
his unholy presence, God enters and restores the 
soul to perfect moral health. 

If the believing soul will come as perfectly 
into sympathy with Christ as the unregenerate 
soul is with evil, and surrender as completely to 
the influence of the Holy Ghost as the ungodly 



Entire Sandification by the Holy Ghost. 1 69 

man does to the spirit of the world, as suddenly 
as the unrestrained atmosphere would fill a vacuum? 
God would come in and the obedient soul would 
have an experience of the process of purification 
in which there would be no perceptible succession. 

The phraseology of the Bible supports this view : 
Jesus came "to save His people from their sins." 
"The blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanseth us 
from all sin." "Wherefore He is able to save 
to the uttermost all that come unto God by Him/' 
There is no intimation in the Scriptures of salva- 
tion being possible by any other than redemptive 
agencies. 

Gradualism by any process is not hinted at in 
the most remote manner, but the gospel of Jesus 
Christ continues to announce to a world of perish- 
ing sinners "Now is the day of salvation." The 
Bible is as specific in its statement that Jesus is 
the source of purity as it is that He is the fountain 
of life. 

In the thirty-sixth chapter of Ezekiel the Lord 
uses the first personal pronoun I in regard to the 
fact of purification more than twenty times, de- 
claring that cleansing is His own act, and that 
purity is an emanation from His own being, and 
when the evangelist was on the island of Patmos 



170 The Doctrine of Entire Sandification. 

and the heavens were opened to Him, and His 
ears saluted with strains of celestial music, the 
multitude about the throne in the raptures of song 
proclaimed to all the ages that "They had washed 
their robes and made them white in the blood of 
the Lamb." 

We may state the argument in another form 
with the same result. Sanctification is a part of 
man's salvation ; without it he cannot enter heaven. 
Jesus is the Saviour of men, and the accomplish- 
ment of man's salvation is His own personal work. 
Whatever He undertakes to do as His own per- 
sonal work He does at once. When Jesus came 
to Bethany and the sorrowing sisters poured out 
their griefs to Him, saying, " Lord, if Thou hadst 
been here, our brother had not died," Jesus, 
weeping, went with them and stood by the grave, 
and when the stone was rolled away He bade the 
dead man come forth, and he that had been dead 
obeyed and stood before them in perfect health. 
He touched the bier and bade the young man 
arise, and gave the desolate widow her only son 
perfectly restored. He said to the blind man at 
Jericho, " Receive thy sight," and the insensible 
orbs obeyed His voice and a heavenly radiance 
filled soul and body. And when the poor, polluted 



Entire Sanetijication by the Holy Ghost. 171 

and loathsome leper said to Him, " Lord, if Thou 
wilt, Thou canst make me clean," " Jesus put forth 
His hand and touched him, saying, I will, be thou 
clean, and immediately his leprosy was cleansed." 
This Jesus is our purifier. " He of God is made 
unto us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification and 
redemption." The preliminary steps are already 
taken; He is our sacrifice; the blood is already 
" sprinkled ; " He has undertaken to make the 
human heart clean, to purify the moral nature of 
all that believe, and the miracles of His personal 
ministry illustrate His method, and the works of 
His hands testify to His power. " He was in the 
beginning, the world was made by Him ;" " by 
Him all things consist ; " " by Him were all things 
made that are made ; " " He spake and it was 
done ; He commanded and it stood fast." 

In that eternity when there was nought, before 
man was, before the sons of God sang their an- 
thems of praise and " shouted for joy " over a new- 
born world, " beyond the period of angelic history, 
beyond the period of stellar history," in the be- 
ginning He stood upon the empty void and, con- 
templating all the possibilities, dipped His finger 
in His own glory, and touched the heavens and 
left them blazing with worlds of beauty and of 



172 The Doctrine of Entire Sanctification. 

light ; Jesus Christ the same yesterday, to-day and 
forever ; the Saviour of men, " able to save to the 
uttermost all that come unto God by Him." By 
His magic touch spiritual eyes are opened. He 
lays His hand on the spiritual bier and imparts 
new life to the dead soul ; He touches the moral 
leper and makes him entirely clean. 

We may change the form of the argument again 
with the same result. 

Sin is an instantaneous act, and the moral con- 
sequences of sin ensue at once. 

Complete salvation is an instantaneous work 
wrought in the soul by the Holy Ghost, and the 
various stages of its experience correspond to the 
faith of the candidate and the operation- of the 
Spirit. 

Guilt is an instantaneous result following actual 
sin. Peace is an instantaneous result following 
actual pardon. Spiritual death is an instanta- 
neous result of actual sin. Spiritual life as a 
conscious experience is an instantaneous result of 
positive regeneration. 

The corruption of man's moral nature as a re- 
sult of sin was an instantaneous experience ; 
therefore the sanctification of the soul, which is 
the cleansing away of the inherited defilement by 



Entire Sanctijioation by the Holy Ghost 173 

the Holy Spirit, is an event in which there is no 
perceptible succession. 

We have the universal experience of the Chris- 
tian world in evidence that pardon and regenera- 
tion are events without perceptible succession; 
and we must conclude that instantaneousness is 
the Divine method, -so far as the processes of sal- 
vation are involved. We have also the recorded 
testimony of thousands who have died in the tri- 
umphs of full salvation, and the testimony of a 
great company of living witnesses who now enjoy 
the blessing of heart-purity, who all with one 
voice affirm that they have been washed from 
their impurities by the "blood of Jesus " as an 
instantaneous experience. 

The evangelist, in obedience to the Divine com- 
mand, recorded the testimony of the Church tri- 
umphant. He beheld a great multitude that no 
man could number, composed of the saved of all 
ages, all classes, and all nationalities, comprehend- 
ing various periods of time, who with united 
voice proclaim the fact that Jesus " washed them 
from their sins in His own blood. " And as 
washing is an instantaneous process, we infer that 
their cleansing was an experience not marked by 
successive stages. 



174 The Doctrine of Entire Sanctification. 

Entire sanctification is the experience of com- 
plete salvation. All of man's salvation is accom- 
plished by God alone. Therefore holiness can 
neither be attained by growth nor penance. 
Again , we formulate it with the same result. 
Salvation is a free gift bestowed upon the trusting 
soul by the Lord through the merit of Jesus 
Christ. The act of giving, whether conditional 
or arbitrary, is an act without perceptible succes- 
sion; hence we must conclude that experimental 
holiness is an instantaneous event. 

But we dishonor Jesus when we assume that 
sanctification is necessarily a gradual process. One 
act of disobedience sent Adam from the garden of 
his earthly delights, changed his entire moral na- 
ture, sent corruption and death to every element 
of his being, and conscious of the change, he fled 
from God, and secreted himself in the deep shades 
of Eden, as the criminal shuns society and hides 
from the officer of the law. 

Therefore, if Satan could, through one act of 
deception, procure the ruin of the race in one 
instant of time, and it requires the whole life- 
time of a man for God to counteract the evil and 
eliminate its impurity, and then He has to employ 
the sequents of sin, which are suffering and death, 



Entire Sanctijication by the Holy Ghost 175 

to assist in the work of salvation, Satan is greater 
than God. 

Finally, Ive have the direct statements of the 
Bible, the argument based on philosophy and the 
testimony of universal experience that entire sanc- 
tification is an instantaneous experience wrought 
by the power of God. 



176 The Doctrine of Entire Sanctifieation. 



CHAPTEE XXV. 
GROWTH AFTER PURIFICATION. 

WE now come to a very important phase of 
this subject, — the development of Christian 
character in harmony with the experience of full 
salvation. 

In the first chapter of the Second Epistle of 
Peter, the apostle, with characteristic brevity, gives 
a perfect antidote to all religious sloth, a remedy 
for all backsliding, and reveals the secret of uni- 
versal success. The primary rules of religious 
arithmetic solve the vexed problem. 

The apostle, assuming that every converted 
person was anxious to make the most of his op- 
portunities, and secure for himself and others the 
largest success, points out definitely the sure 
method of its accomplishment by continuous ad- 
dition: "Add to your faith." * * * "For if ye 
do these things, ye shall never fall. For so an 
entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly 
into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and 
Saviour, Jesus Christ." This comprehensive par- 



Growth after Purification. 177 

agraph of the apostle embraces all the life of a 
Christian from its inception to its culmination in 
glory. He does not linger at any point. From 
the moment the Christ-life is formed in the be- 
liever's heart, he rushes on with characteristic 
vehemence to the attainment of perfect purity. 
He speaks of the Divine power, by which " life 
and godliness" and all things that pertain thereto 
are given to the believer, and of " the exceeding 
great and precious promises" by which he is 
"made partaker of the Divine nature," "having 
escaped the corruption that is in the world through 
lust;" and without a moment's pause urges the 
candidate forward to the completeness and matu- 
rity of Christian manhood. 

He is as anxious that the sanctified believer be 
properly matured as he is that the young convert 
be wholly sanctified. It is as if He had said : 
Ye are now in a state of salvation; you have been 
born of the Spirit and adopted into the family of 
God, and made partakers of His nature, and 
cleansed from all the original corruption of your 
nature ; but these are only the primary stages of 
religious experience and the fundamental condi- 
tions of Christian manhood. You stand now on 
the threshold of unlimited privilege, immeasurable 
12 



178 The Doctrine of Entire Sandification. 

distances spread out before you. " Eye hath not 
seen nor ear heard, neither have entered into the 
heart of man the things which God hath prepared 
for them that love Hirn." Opportunities as abun- 
dant as the waves of the sea throng you on every 
side. Embracing these, God would have you de- 
velop the gracious possibilities within you into a 
glorious manhood, which at the first was made 
" but a little lower than the angels." Therefore 
"add to your faith this constellation of Christian 
graces, and God will crown you with glory and 
honor. For if these things be in you and abound 
(be continually supplied), they make you that ye 
shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the 
knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ." 

This w T hole subject, so vital to the Church, is 
obscured by the perversion of the use of terms. 
Sanctification implies (1) the setting apart for a 
holy purpose; (2) the making holy or pure that 
which is thus consecrated. Every sinner sancti- 
fies himself when he ceases from sin and sets him- 
self apart to the service of God, and every con- 
verted person sanctifies himself when he makes 
the believer's consecration, in which he separates 
himself entirely to the Lord. But however per- 
fect the consecration may be, that does not consti- 



Growth after Purification. 179 

tute him holy within. No one is entirely sanctified 
until the carnal nature is crucified, and the hered- 
itary impurity eliminated from the moral nature 
by the Holy Ghost. 

But there is a marked difference between per- 
fect holiness and perfect development, between 
purity and ripeness. The act of purification is 
God's own act. He only can make holy, and His 
w r ork is always done at once, but the development 
of strength, the building up of Christian character, 
require time and effort ; these are gradual, because 
they constitute no part of man's salvation. The 
fruitage of a man's life, in its influence on others, 
continues in the world and is cumulative through 
all time. 

But the salvation of the soul, being the work of 
God exclusively, is accomplished at once. The 
development of strength, the culture and polish 
and usefulness that come to the saved, are con- 
tingent upon their own efforts ; those qualities are 
resultants ; they are inseparable from time and are 
of necessity gradual and progressive. 

We err and fall into confusion when we con- 
found growth with holiness ; it is not holiness any 
more than it is conversion. Growth has regard to 
character ; conversion and holiness are the two 



180 The Doctrine of Entire Sanctification. 

experiences of free and full salvation. Salvation is 
not a product of growth, but an experimental fact. 
" By grace ye are saved, and that not of yourselves; 
your salvation is the gift of God through faith." 

Man never grows anything but the moldy fungi 
of sin until after he is converted, and then, under 
the most favorable circumstances, if not cleansed 
from all sin and sanctified wholly, he will neces- 
sarily grow awry ; growth cannot change the bias 
of the mind nor correct mental nor "spiritual defi- 
ciencies. A very active child, mentally and phys- 
ically, may have curvature of the spine, which 
growth confirms and makes permanent. 

Life is the fundamental and primary condition 
of growth. Life precedes all growth. It is only 
the living animal or plant that grows ; the pro- 
cess of growth is by reception and appropriation ; 
this is the universal law of growth, and is without 
a known exception, and the incipient direction is 
confirmed by age. The dead plant and the dead 
animal speedily decompose, and there is always 
present the odor of decay, which indicates unmis- 
takably the condition of each. 

The Christian in his various processes of char- 
acter-building is subject to the same law.' 

Only the living Christian appropriates " the life 



Growth after Purification. 181 

and the truth " and continues to live and grow and 
labor, and the more vigorous the life, the purer 
and more healthy the spiritual state, the more 
rapid and symmetrical will be the growth and the 
more luxuriant and abundant the fruitage, and 
when the spiritual death is complete, the peculiar 
odor of the dissecting-room is discernible in the 
moral atmosphere of his presence. 

The acorn has all the constituent elements of the 
oak packed in its tiny cup, living and organized 
ready for growth. Xo new element is ever added. 
The apple-seed has all the elements of the future 
tree, with the initial possibilities of fruitage. 

The converted soul has all the elements and all 
the initial possibilities of the mature Christian. 
Sanctification does not add anything to the soul, it 
gives no new element of manhood. By it the fet- 
ters are removed and the soul is adjusted to the 
harmonies of the Divine nature. Sanctification is 
the purification of that which already exists ; it is 
the removal of the obstructions that are in the way, 
and the proper direction of the inherent life and 
power of the believing soul ; and there can be no 
antagonism between a truly justified soul and holi- 
ness ; they of necessity breathe the same spirit and 
move in the same direction ; by virtue of their com- 



182 The Doctrine of Entire Sanctification. 

mon origin, they have a strong affinity for each 
other. As the vine leans toward the open window, 
even from the darkest and most remote corner of 
the cellar, even so the soul, when truly converted, 
if not trammeled by doctrinal errors and ecclesi- 
astical prejudices, leans Godward and pants for a 
more perfect fellowship with Him. 

" Rivers to the ocean run 

Nor stay in all their course, 
Fire ascending seeks the sun, 

Both speed them to their source. 
Thus a soul that's born of God, 

Pants to view His glorious face. 
Upward tends to His abode, 

To rest in His embrace.' ' 

The careful reader cannot fail to observe that, 
according to these primary principles so briefly 
outlined, perfect purity is a prerequisite of sym- 
metrical and perfect maturity. 

If we confound these two, we necessarily em- 
barrass all our conceptions of the subject. Who- 
ever looks upon a beautiful, healthy apple-tree, 
standing in the bright May-day sun, pulsating with 
life and energy and bending under the weight of 
bloom that covers its branches, exhaling Edenic 
fragrance from their snowy petals, cannot fail to 
recognize the life and purity and health fulness, as 



Growth after Purification. 183 

thus manifesting themselves ; as the essential condi- 
tion and prophetic announcement of the abundant 
fruitage that will hang ripe and luscious in the 
October sun. 

And if there is any significance to Christian 
growth, it must demand the complete work of 
salvation by grace in the earliest period of life and 
the preservation of the soul in that sacred relation- 
ship with God, so that the golden fruitage of an 
entire life wholly given to God may appear in due 
time. 

Christian purity and Christian perfection, in its 
comprehensive sense, are not synonymous. There 
are marked stages in Christian experience. There 
are definite stages in Christian progress also. 

Purity and maturity are not the same. Purity 
may be perfect without regard to age, size or sur- 
roundings ; anything that exists may be made 
clean without changing its size, shape, substance 
or color. Christian perfection has its phases. The 
term perfection legitimately applies to almost every 
conceivable thing, being or condition. A perfect 
peach, a perfect sphere, perfectly white, perfectly 
clean. The embarrassment grows out of a mis- 
taken notion that Christian perfection and entire 
sanctification necessarily signify the same religious 



184 The Doctrine of Entire Sanetification. 

state. Perfect love is equivalent to entire sanetifi- 
cation, but Christian perfection, in its legitimate 
sense, implies more than perfect love. The apos- 
tle uses the term " perfection " in the sixth chap- 
ter of Hebrews as indicating a religious state in 
advance of the purification of the heart. He speaks 
of leaving the primary stages of Christian life and 
" going on to perfection." Heart purity is not the 
most advanced state of Christian life that is possi- 
ble, and we assume that, according to the Divine 
plan, holiness is embraced in the primary stages of 
religious experience. 

The apostle states the case so clearly that no 
one can fail to apprehend the fact that there is 
very much of religious possibility lying beyond 
the period of sanetification, but that does not im- 
ply that the purification of the heart is a tedious 
or a protracted process. The entire Christian life 
is one of advancement. Progress is the law of the 
Divine procedure. The highest and broadest 
experience of a holy life is not attainable at once. 

The rehearsal of an experience of justification 
which is forty years old is as acceptable to God as 
an experience of holiness of the same age. The 
crossing of the Jordan by the Israelites was a 
momentary experience, but the possession and 



Growth after Purification. 185 

subjugation of the land was necessarily a matter of 
time. " Now therefore arise, go over this Jordan, 
thou and all this people, unto the land which I do 
give to them, even to the children of Israel ; every 
place that the sole of your foot shall tread upon, 
that have I given unto you." 

Conversion is an instantaneous work ; so also 
sanctification, being a part of man's salvation, is 
done at once. But Christian life has unlimited 
possibilities for development ; it is continuous and 
progressive, but it is inseparable from correct 
doctrinal principles and right thinking ; there is 
room for almost unlimited culture in holy living. 

We are commanded to leave the elementary 
principles of religious experience and attain grander 
manifestations of the Divine favor than have yet 
been received. 

The gospel proposes to make man perfect in the 
practice of Christian ethics, but it also proposes to 
make him skillful in the use of his intellectual 
faculties as a holy person. In order that man 
might be a skillful co-worker, God has provided 
for the culture of his graces and for his faculties 
also, — " For every one that uses milk is unskillful 
in the word of righteousness, for he is a babe ; but 
strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, 



186 The Doctrine of Entire Sanctification. 

even to those who by reason of use have their 
senses (faculties) exercised to discern both good 
and evil." 

Christian perfection is not an accidental appen- 
dage of the gospel system ; its attainment is a duty 
obligatory upon all men. We are commanded to 
" be perfect even as our Father in heaven is per- 
fect/ 7 This perfection implies more than the 
sanctification of the soul ; it is a state where the 
graces are developed and the faculties trained in 
holy warfare. The Christian is exhorted to " go 
on " to this perfection, and as life always precedes 
motion, we conclude no one is born in this state of 
perfection, and as the word here translated perfect 
is not synonymous with the term rendered purifi- 
cation, we are persuaded that it embraces more 
than purity. The word translated perfection is 
teleiotes ; it signifies the end of effort, — " complete- 
ness," — it indicates the mature fruitage of a holy 
life. The apostle uses the term to express that spir- 
itual condition where the whole redeemed man shall 
stand before the world in the dignity of his perfect 
manhood. But heart purity is one of the primary 
principles of the Christian system. It is the Divine 
order that it should follow conversion speedily. 
Holiness necessarily precedes maturity. The world 



Growth after Purification. 187 

is greatly mistaken at this point ; no one can ma- 
ture perfectly who is not perfectly purified in early 
life. And all who are sanctified near the hour of 
death enter heaven in a state of immaturity. 
Neither is maturity a product of age alone ; a 
thousand influences contribute to maturity after 
the soul has been thoroughly sanctified. 

God in His wisdom did not make our entrance 
into heaven to depend on our maturity, but on our 
holiness. Holiness is fitness for heaven ; perfec- 
tion is fitness for successful work here or for any- 
thing God has for us here or hereafter. 

God deals with men as accountable beings, and 
He demands of the holiness teachers and evange- 
lists of the present age perfect loyalty to His 
cause ; they cannot overlook the wants of the pres- 
ent time ; they must conform to the ethics of holi- 
ness. In the fourth chapter of the Epistle to the 
Ephesians the apostle speaks of an advanced 
state of religious life, and he points out the cultur- 
ing agencies that are to continue in the church, 
u till we all come in the unity of the faith and, 
of the knowledge of the Son of God into a per- 
fect maiiyxmto the measure of the stature of the 
fulness of Christ" 

This cannot mean less than that state of holiness 



188 The Doctrine of Entire Sanctification. 

that embraces the entire man cultured and ma- 
tured, — that broad and high plane beyond heart 
purity where all the powers are developed in 
holiness. 

God is demanding of the leaders of this great 
movement the recognition of their obligation in 
this direction, — to lead the people into a more cul- 
tured state, into " greener pastures and beside the 
still waters." 

There is a difference in the flavor of different 
specimens of fruit grown on the same tree the 
same season. The apples near the top, other things 
being equal, get more sunlight, more rain, more 
pure air, and thus take on a richer flavor. There 
is a difference in the lusciousness of melons grown 
on the same vine, and there is a natural difference 
in the experience and life of persons saved in the 
same meeting. 

But beyond the period of the first experience 
there are unlimited possibilities for the disciples of 
holiness ; not more salvation, neither more pardon, 
nor more purity, but more knowledge of God and 
more power to work for His cause. There is room 
for almost unlimited culture and polish in full 
salvation. 

There are those who glory in a boorish spirit 



Grrowth after Purification. 189 

and a coarse manner as the quintessence of a holy 
life; they lose no opportunity to parade before 
miscellaneous assemblies in grotesque attire their 
uncomely intellectualities. 

Shall we not make some improvement here ? 
Shall not we who have come into this " goodly 
land " possess it and develop its resources ? Shall 
we eat of the fruit of its vineyards and not plant 
and train for those who shall succeed us ? Let us 
have experimental holiness full-orbed, and the cul- 
ture and maturity of the graces, give to the world 
the development and polish of the faculties, the 
lustre and " beauty of holiness/' so that the Chris- 
tian life will not be circumscribed by a narrow 
vision nor the work hindered by improper and in- 
judicious effort, but let true holiness have symmet- 
rical and continuous progress to perfect mature 
manhood. 



190 The Doctrine of Entire Sanctification. 



CHAPTER XXVI. 

THE DIVINE PROVISION FOR GROWTH AND 
CULTURE. 

" All things are yours." 

CHRISTIANITY is a complete system. It is 
not simply an accumulation of facts, any one 
of which may be rejected without loss, and all of 
which are at the discretion of the receiver ; but it is 
perfect, possessing no redundancy and yet lacking 
nothing. The gospel supplies every want of 
humanity. 

" But my God shall supply all your need, ac- 
cording to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus." 
This elaborate provision is made for man because 
he has need of all its resources; as a sinner he 
needs all to save him perfectly from sin; as a 
Christian he needs all its gracious provisions to 
keep him pure and round out his character to 
completeness and endow him with strength ade- 
quate to the demands of this life. 

These needs no partial or limited system could 
supply. But the gospel makes provision for a 



Divine Provision for Growth and Culture. 191 

perfected manhood, not for perfect purity alone, 
but for almost unlimited advancement in the fel- 
lowship of God. Asa converted man may remain 
unsanctified, and, though living and growing, be, 
in a limited sense, unholy, because he does not 
receive all the truth, and at the same time not 
forfeit his sonship, even so sanctified Christians 
remain narrow and circumscribed because they 
choose to occupy but a fraction of their inheritance, 
and yet they retain their moral purity. But when 
we find Christians thus claiming only a limited 
portion of their inheritance, only a small patch on 
the edge of their Father's estate, we cheerfully let 
them have that; but we continually press upon 
them the privilege and obligation to receive infi- 
nitely more. Purity, power, strength, endurance 
and the perfection of all these, in the sense of 
maturity, are the blood-bought gifts of the indi- 
vidual Christian and the whole church. "All 
things are yours" because "ye are Christ's." 

There may be consolation for some in the words 
of the poet, — 

" Let me be little and unknown, 
Loved and prized by God alone." 

But, literally, this is not a Pauline sentiment ; 



192 The Doctrine of Entire Sanctification/ 

neither does it express the true spirit of Christian 
heroism. God wants athletes in the field of moral 
conflict. He wants muscular Christians to toil in 
His vineyard. There is a demand for trained men 
who can "endure hardness as good soldiers of 
Jesus Christ," and because of that fact He has 
made such wonderful provision for the church in 
every department of His redemptive work; and 
as we contemplate the vastness of His mercy and 
the fulness of the Divine supply, we can sing, with 
Charles Wesley, — 

" Let me no more in deep complaint 
My leanness, O my leanness cry, 
Alone consumed of pitting want 
Of all my Father's children I. 

" The painful thirst, the fond desire, 
Thy joyous presence shall remove, 
But my full soul shall still require 
A whole eternity of love." 

The whole realm of nature belongs to God's 
children. He hath filled it with richness for their 
sustenance. It furnishes an area ample in extent 
and abundant in opportunity for physical and 
mental culture, full of the grandest lessons of Him 
who made it and poised it in space. What beauty ! 
what variety ! what grandeur and sublimity ! what 



Divine Provision for Growth and Culture. 193 

displays of the Divine goodness ! what exhibitions 
of infinite love ! In the vaulted sky the sun daily 
rides forth/diffusing light and warmth, and nightly 
the silver moon " leads on her starry train." All 
these the Father made that they might minister 
to the happiness of man. 

To the Christian belong the grain-scented fields, 
the rolling prairies, the moaning forests, the broad 
rivers, the foaming oceans, the thundering cata- 
racts, the gray old hills, the snow-crowned moun- 
tains, the bubbling springs and burning wastes. 

These are some of the tangible objects that teach 
men to " Behold the beauty of the Lord" and to 
appreciate a noble manhood, for which God, in the 
fulness of His infinite love, has so generously 
provided. 

To the Christian also belongs the realm of art, — 
the productions of pencil, brush and chisel ; the 
frescoes, the carved work and paintings of ancient 
temple and modern gallery are the silent but 
sublime agents and untiring auxiliaries of man's 
aesthetic culture. The store-houses of literature 
are filled for the children of God. For them 
Homer and Virgil, Shakespeare and Milton, pen- 
ned their glowing periods. And Demosthenes and 
Burke poured forth their fervid strains of declama- 
13 



194 The Doctrine of Entire Sanctifieation. 

tion. And the philosophers and orators of all 
ages brought their contributions thither for the 
church of God. 

All natural science belongs to the Christian. 
You may be saved without the knowledge of one 
single principle of science; you need not so much 
as " know that there be any science" in order to 
be saved from all sin. But the church cannot 
safely ignore the truth anywhere and close her ears 
against the teaching of true science. Newton and 
Herschel, walking among the stars, are the friends 
of religion. Miller and Agassiz, searching amid 
the ancient formation of rocks, or in the depths of 
the sea, bring forth those garnered facts for all. 
All theology belongs to the individual Christian. 
Arminius and Calvin are dead, but the two great 
systems of theology as formulated by them survive, 
not as the ultimatum of doctrinal statement, but 
as the scaffolding on which the student of to-day 
carries up his work to completeness. 

All religious thought belongs to the household 
of God. Luther and Melanchthon, Wesley and 
the vicar of Madeley, thought for the coming ages. 
The Bible, as an unsealed volume, belongs to the 
church; it will never again be obscured by the 
traditions of men. The prophets, apostles and 



Divine Provision for Growth and Culture. 195 

evangelists recorded their sublime visions of the 
kingdom of God for the latest generations. For 
all men Sinai's clanging trumpet pealed forth those 
proscriptive utterances and Calvary and Olivet 
sang their anthems of victory. The plaintive and 
fervid strains of Judah's shepherd king float down, 
the ages for all. The burning and vehement utter- 
ances of Peter, the grand climaxes of Paul, the 
earnest and affectionate breathings of the beloved 
disciple, are the common heritage of the church. 
To the entire body of Christ belongs the realm of 
unexplored religious experience, — that mysterious 
border-land " Where eye hath not seen nor ear 
heard, neither hath it entered the heart of man the 
things God has in reservation for them that love 
Him," but where God revealeth them by His Spirit. 
The past, with its treasures of wisdom, gleaned 
from a thousand fruitful fields, stands ready to 
bless the waiting throng. The leaders of religious 
thought in this age cannot afford to blot out the 
experiences and brush away the teachings of the 
past; they dare not enter this temple, hoary and 
honorable with age, and with iconoclastic hand 
despoil its garnered wealth. Rather let us all 
stand with uncovered brow in its dim, religious 
aisles and gaze upon the faces of the ancient 



196 The Doctrine of Entire Sandification. 

worthies that adorn its gray, old walls and with 
reverent spirit listen to the resounding footsteps 
and the echoing hymns of praise of the countless 
throng of worshipers that crowd her ancient altars. 
The present belongs to each individual Christian. 
This to you is the focal point of all the ages. Six 
thousand years pour their gathered stress of re- 
sponsibility into this moment. You are standing 
on the advance line of opportunity, ever broaden- 
ing fields of usefulness open before you, along 
their valleys mighty engines of progress bear their 
precious freight, while on every side rivers of 
knowledge, rising on the mountain heights of the 
past and drawing their supply from the accumu- 
lated experience of two thousand generations, 
deepen and widen as they roll on to pour their 
golden treasure at your feet. 

"You are dwelling 
In a grand and awful time, 
In an age on ages telling, 
To be living is sublime." 

" The unmapped future," with its myriad pos- 
sibilities, opens its inviting portals to your per- 
sonal effort. " It shall be as fruitful as Carmel," 
and fragrant as a garden of spices or a desolate 
and thorny waste, as you may elect. 



The Philosophy of Religious Growth. 197 

CHAPTER XXVII. 
THE PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGIOUS GROWTH. 

(John vi. 51-53.) 

CHRISTIAN growth and Christian culture are 
essentially different from each other. 

The universal law of growth is by appropria- 
tion, and has reference to the development of pro- 
portions or to the increase of strength. Culture 
applies to the use of the faculties and the direc- 
tion of the forces of the life. In the sixth chap- 
ter of His gospel, as John records it, Jesus laid 
down the fundamental fact that life and strength 
are definitely imparted to the Christian from 
Him. "He that eateth my flesh and drinketh 
my blood dwelleth in me, and I in him/' 

If we divest the Saviour's statement of all exe- 
getical intricacies, we have the substance of his 
teachings in a few propositions, stated by Lange, — 

" The flesh and blood of Jesus are given to the 
world to be the nutriment of mankind, to be the 
sustenance and divinity of His higher spiritual 
life ) and when the partaking of His flesh and 



198 The Doctrine of Entire Sanctification. 

blood are made the indispensable condition of sal- 
vation, we are to understand that the life of man 
proceeds only from the life of Christ, which was 
completed in His death. 

"It is only by Christ's actual person being 
made the special vital element of mankind, — the 
nourishment and refreshment of the real life of 
man, — it is by this means alone man receives the 
true life. 

" This implies (1) that the sacrifice of Christ 
and the participation in its benefits constitute for 
man the only way of escape from death and the 
only means of the higher spiritual life. 

(2) " Because nothing but the reception of Christ 
and personal communion with Him — consisting in 
the believer's dwelling in Christ and Christ dwell- 
ing in the believer. 

(3) "Therefore he that eateth accepts Christ in 
all His offices for the accomplishment of all His 
holy purposes. 

(4) " He who takes not rejects the nourishment 
and the life to his own ruin/' 

These fundamental principles as enunciated by 
the Master reveal the momentous fact that the 
spiritual life of the believer is perpetuated by the 
same power by which it was begotten — and that it 



The Philosophy of Religious Growth. 199 

is developed on the same condition on which it was 
bestowed. 

Spiritual life is imparted to man by a Divine 
act called regeneration. This spiritual life is not 
self-supportive; it is developed and perpetuated in 
all its phases to the maturity of Christian man- 
hood, on the condition that its possessor keep 
himself in the right relation to the Fountain of 
Life, by steadfastly believing God's Word and 
obediently keeping every Divine command. The 
Christian must conform to the universal law of 
growth ; he does not grow by exercise and gain 
strength by hard work, but by the reception of 
life and power from God. 

The fatal delusion that meets us everywhere in 
eloquent and earnest appeal from the pulpit and 
press — that work is the condition, of growth — is 
the occasion of irreparable loss to the Church. 
Young converts are exhorted to work — to go 
forward and do their duty, pray and speak in 
the social meetings — as the primary condition 
of growth ; they do so, and put a commercial 
value on their efforts, or look to the act of prayer 
for strength ; but they experience a sense of bar- 
renness, of dissatisfaction, and sometimes a degree 
of condemnation ; they cannot understand their 



200 The Doctrine of Entire Sandijication. 

spiritual condition, become discouraged and aban- 
don their religious efforts. There are three facts 
that are apparent at this point of our investigations 
that will greatly aid us in understanding this 
phase of the subject. 

(1) The first is, that no religious experience of 
life and power is ever developed by accident; 
both life and power are bestowed when the indi- 
vidual complies with the conditions on which 
they are promised. 

(2) The second is, that true faith always pro- 
duces obedience to the Divine will ; and that unbe- 
lief and disobedience are inseparable — and "all 
unbelief is sin." 

(3) The third is, the dangerous fallacy that 
Christians are strengthened by work per se. The 
primary fact that every Christian ought to know 
and be able to teach is, that the law of growth that 
prevails in the physical world governs in the intel- 
lectual and spiritual world ; hence no man lives 
or grows by labor in the one or in the other. The 
laborer becomes skillful in the use of his imple- 
ment by practice. He facilitates digestion and 
assimilation by exercise in the open air, but every 
iota of his strength comes from his food and from 
the air he breathes. The student yet in his sopho- 



The Philosophy of Religious Growth. 201 

more course is conscious of the exploded heresy 
that the blacksmith's arm gains great strength by 
continually wielding the hammer, and intelligent 
congregations are wearied with the continuous 
repetition of this illustration by pastors and teach- 
ers as indicating the only successful method of the 
Christian life, and the weak and trembling Chris- 
tian and the timid young convert are exhorted 
"to do their duty, that they may grow and gain 
strength by labor." 

A scientific investigation reveals the fact that 
life is not a natural product of matter, but a mys- 
terious gift, and that no laborer, whether artisan 
or farmer, ever gained life or strength from labor 
of any kind. But, on the contrary, every blow 
the smith strikes, a portion of his strength is 
exhausted, a given amount of tissue is dissolved 
by combustion, and the caloric is emitted — a part 
of his life slips from him. When the blow is 
given the " potential energy " or the stored power 
which is in the muscular fibre of the arm is con- 
verted into " actual energy " or motion ; it is set 
free ; it is forever escaped from the laborer ; he can 
never recall it. 

The food the laborer eats is stored power ; it is a 
raised weight ; and it is food only when it contains 



202 The Doctrine of Entire Sanctiftcation. 

within itself "potential energy/' which at anytime, 
by the will of the laborer, may become "actual 
force/' 

When this food is digested the stored power is set 
free from one form and carried by the blood to 
the different organs and tissues of the body, where 
it is assimilated and stored for use, from whence 
it is converted into actual energy, or motion, at 
the will of the laborer. 

Thus it appears that a laborer, whether he 
be a blacksmith or a farmer, is quite a human 
institution, and lives on the food he eats, as other 
men do ; and it is only because he does eat and 
assimilate that he has strength to swing the pon- 
derous sledge. No intelligent person presumes 
that the children of Israel, in their journey from 
the bondage of Egypt to the land of Canaan, 
lived by marching. They had their daily supply 
of manna and the quails came up about the 
camp, and when weary from travel they refreshed 
themselves with the cooling waters that burst 
from the smitten rock. 

And they had their spiritual supplies from the 
same source that furnishes the Christian of to-day, 
u For they did all eat the same spiritual meat and 
did all drink the same spiritual drink, for they 



The Philosophy of Religious Growth. 203 

drank of that rock that followed them, and that 
rock was Christ." 

Thus all the facts of history and experience 
combine to illustrate the principle that Christians 
cannot live on religious exercise. 

Israel had " angels' food " in the wilderness, 
and from it derived health and strength to march 
for God, and live for the generations that were to 
come after them. And when "they had come 
over Jordan" into their inheritance, they ate of 
the corn of the land, and regaled themselves with 
milk and honey from the rocks, and fed upon the 
luxurious clusters of Eshcol — with the pomegra- 
nates and the figs. 

It was not until they were thus abundantly 
supplied that they were able to drive out the in- 
habitants of the land, and build the kingdom, 
and establish the throne of David, and get ready 
for the advent of the Messiah. 

A careful examination of the processes of phy- 
siology reveals the fact that at every pulsation of 
the heart millions of the red corpuscles of the blood 
lose their individuality. But by thus expending 
their force they preserve and perpetuate the life and 
energy of the bodily organism, filling each member 
with life and power for their respective functions. 



204 The Doctrine of Entire Sandification. 

The daily food, the vitalizing air, continually 
replenish the blood and send it forward on its 
mission of love, so that as the blood goes the 
rounds of duty, every part of the system takes up 
and converts to its own use the elements it re- 
quires both for its renovation and development. 
" As the circulating current approaches each organ 
of the body, the prepared particles that are in the 
blood leave the stream and mingle with the sub- 
stance of the organ and are converted into its own 
nature and substance." 

If you place a fractured bone or an open wound 
under the focus of a powerful glass during the pro- 
cess of healing, you will discover that as the pre- 
pared material leaves the stream of blood, the 
tissues of the affected parts are in a state of active 
expectancy, and with great cordiality and eager- 
ness receive and assimilate the portion prepared 
for each delicate tissue. 

"Were it not for this wise arrangement of our 
Heavenly Father, the constant friction of life, the 
perpetual toil, the consuming care of business, 
would soon exhaust the vital forces of the system 
and send the whole human family to premature 
decay." 

Christians have a life "hid with Christ in 



The Philosophy of Religious Growth. 205 

God;" and in order that they may not become 
exhausted and destroyed by contact with evil, 
God commands them to "walk in the light" of 
personal fellowship with Himself, the fountain 
and source of all life. 

While believers thus walk in personal fellow- 
ship with Jesus, they receive His life and expe- 
rience, His power and purity, in their souls ; and 
the perpetual waste made upon their strength by 
the antagonism of evil on the worldly side is con- 
stantly supplied by an uninterrupted communi- 
cation with the eternal fountain of purity and 
power. 

Christians, in their individual capacity, are the 
conserving forces of the moral world. They are 
to invigorate, purify and preserve society from 
absolute ruin by the spiritual impulse of their 
own lives. And their life and spiritual force 
would soon perish, if not constantly replenished 
from on high. 

The disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ are to 
go into the active scenes of business. They of 
necessity come in contact with every phase of so- 
cial life. They have to go to the fields and shops 
and to the marts of trade. They have to stand 
in the presence of the enemies of Jesus. Every 



206 The Doctrine of Entire Sanctijication. 

breath of worldly atmosphere chills them. Every 
unconverted sinner, each backslider, each indiffer- 
ent and formal professor with whom they come 
in contact, deprives them of a portion of their re- 
ligious vitality; and if they are to withstand all 
evil, they must have their spiritual needs con- 
stantly supplied by an unbroken fellowship with 
Him who is the source of all life and the eternal 
fountain of purity and power. It is because of 
this fact, deeply laid in the philosophy of man's 
being, that Jesus said " I am the bread of life. 
I am the living bread which came down from 
heaven. If any man eat of this bread, he shall 
live forever." 

The apostle illustrates this principle still fur- 
ther by reference to the process of grafting. He 
says, " The natural branches are broken off, and 
the wild olive being grafted in, partakes of the 
nature and fatness of the root." 

The process of inserting a graft differs very 
materially from its own process of growth, and the 
induction into Christ, the establishment of right 
relations with God through Him, and growth in 
grace are not the same. 

The adjustment of personal relations between 
God and the sinner is a covenant act, and is a pre- 



The Philosophy of Religious Growth, 207 

requisite to all growth. Before the graft can be 
inserted it is cut entirely away from its original 
source of life ; it is then carefully trimmed to fit 
the orifice prepared for its insertion. After it is 
properly adjusted it is carefully sealed, (a) to keep 
it to its place, (b) to keep out foreign matter ; a 
defect in either case is fatal. All of this precedes 
the possibility of growth. The life is primarily 
in the root ; only the possibilities of growth and 
fruitage are possessed by the graft ; but while this 
nicely adjusted relation is preserved it partakes of 
the nature and fatness of the root. When the life- 
current reaches the torpid graft, it immediately 
wakes up; the buds open and unfold the leaves, 
which are the laboratories where the material for 
growth is prepared. 

Trees do not grow when the leaves are gone; 
the process cannot be carried on by the root alone ; 
growth is a complicated process. Although the root 
furnishes the life the leaf has one advantage ; it 
has control of the matter and manufactures " after 
its kind." The graft receives its life from the 
root; " partakes of its nature and fatness;" but 
fibre, leaf and fruit follow the law of manufac- 
ture and growth and are of the same kind with 
the graft. 



208 The Doctrine of Entire Sanetification. 

The life in the Christian is divine life. He par- 
takes of the nature and fatness of Christ, but it is 
Christian growth ; hence no amount of growth or 
culture can produce holiness — that God only can 
do. The sinner can never grow into Christ. He is 
grafted in ; he must possess the divine life before 
growth is possible. But when completely separ- 
ated from the world and perfectly adjusted to 
Christ, he receives a continuous supply of that life 
which is " hid with Christ in God." This divine 
life diffuses itself throughout the entire man, and 
there is a cheerful response to its wondrous power; 
each sluggish faculty unfolds to its magic touch 
and becomes at once a laboratory where material 
for growth is prepared. 

And while this perfect union with Christ is pre- 
served the divine life reaches the soul without in- 
terruption, the quickness and expanding faculties 
transmute the " sincere milk of the word " and 
the " strong meat " of the doctrinal truths into 
soul power to be used for the advancement of 
God's cause. This is the universal law of growth, 
whether of plant or animal, intellect or spirit; it 
pervades the entire realm of nature and of grace. 



Legal Obedience. 209 



CHAPTER XXVIII. 

LEGAL, OBEDIENCE NEITHER POSSIBLE, SCRIP- 
TURAL NOR SATISFACTORY AS A MEANS OF 
SALVATION. 

IX his fallen condition a service of perfect obe- 
dience by his own unaided efforts is not pos- 
sible to man ; and ignoring the necessary help 
proffered in Christ, the legalist assumes that there 
is no victory over sin; that the conflict is con- 
tinuous with the life of man ; that the friction of 
the struggle completes the work by the time man 
reaches the end of his probation, leaving but little 
for Jesus to do except receive the pilgrim when he 
arrives at his home. 

But the Scriptures continually repeat the fact 
that the strength by which man gains the victory 
over sin does not proceed from any secondary 
cause, but that it is imparted directly from the 
Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus said to His disciples, 
"Without Me ye can do nothing." "As the 
branch cannot bear fruit of itself except it abide 
in the vine, no more can ye except ye abide in 
14 



210 The Doctrine of Entire Sanetification. 

Me." " If ye abide in Me and My words abide 
in you, ye shall ask what ye will and it shall be 
done unto you." And the apostle continues, "I 
can do all things through Christ which strength- 
ened me." The law of obedience by faith was 
given to Adam in his unfallen state, and he was 
supplied with the necessary motive influence to 
perfectly obey the law and keep inviolate all his 
holy relations with the Father. But by the trans- 
gression these relations were all dissolved, so that 
man not only had new environments, but as a re- 
sult of his changed legal relations with God and 
his affiliations with the adversary, his nature was 
defiled and there was no way of escape from the 
impending ruin. 

The law is inflexible, it can only condemn ; 
mercy is not an attribute of law, and man is already 
condemned. The law knows no method of puri- 
fication, and man is already defiled. The inability 
is not so much in man as it is in the law, which 
cannot adapt itself to man's changed condition, 
nor indicate any means by which to extricate him 
from the universal ruin of sin. u But what the law 
could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, 
God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful 
flesh and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh, — that 



Legal Obedience. 211 

the righteousness of the law should be fulfilled in 
those who walk not after the flesh." 

Such is the nature and extent of the Divine help 
that reaches man through the gospel, that he is as 
capable of obeying the Divine law through the 
grace of our Lord Jesus Christ as Adam was by 
the aid of the Divine help supplied him in his 
innocency. The standard of morality is not 
lowered so as to adjust it to man's weakness. The 
defilement of the moral nature is not concealed be- 
neath the substitutional obedience and purity of 
another party. The Divine method with man as 
a sinner is deliverance by Divine power. The 
order of procedure is that by grace freely bestowed, 
through the merit of our Lord Jesus Christ, actual 
transgressions shall be pardoned, and all impurity 
shall be cleansed, and such a degree of illumination 
given as will enable man to see his needs and appre- 
hend the fulness of supply in Christ Jesus. Chris- 
tian holiness is not predicated on the assumption 
that in the gospel dispensation moral obligation is 
adjusted to man's weakness. It is not a religious 
license purchased by the obedience and expiatory 
sufferings of another. Experimental holiness im- 
plies the removal of the legal barriers between the 
soul and its creator, and the impartation of Divine 



212 The Doctrine of Entire Sanctification. 

life to the spiritual nature, and the elimination 
from the heart of the uncleanness of sin, and the 
impartation of Divine purity and moral strength 
through the meritorious offering of Christ. 

This enables the Christian to " always triumph 
in Christ/' who is the " Mighty to save," and 
takes away every excuse for formalism, and anni- 
hilates every pretext for the general laxness of 
Christian morals, and reveals the glorious fact that 
a perfect union with Christ does secure a perfect 
cleansing of the believer, and enables him to ren- 
der a perfect obedience, so that " the righteousness 
of the law is fulfilled in trim." 

" As the Father hath given to the Son to have 
life in Himself," even so " hath the Son given to 
the disciples to have life in themselves," but not 
of themselves. Their life is derived from Christ, 
as the life of the branch is derived from the vine. 

But as the life that is in the branch, making it 
fruitful, is the same life that is in the vine, even 
so the life that thrills and energizes the believer, 
making him fruitful in good works, is the same 
Divine life that is in Christ Jesus. 

It follows, then, as a logical sequence, that a 
living, personal Christ, enthroned in a human 
heart, imparting spiritual life and diffusing sun- 



Legal Obedience. 213 

shine, giving peace and happiness, is to the be- 
liever, who thus receives Him, a Saviour in the 
present tense, and a realization of this fact is de- 
nominated a conscious experience of salvation. 
We do not mean by this a momentary emotional 
rapture, nor an occasional hour of communion 
with God, but an abiding fellowship ; peace, as a 
river uninterrupted in its flow, love filling the 
heart and beautifying the life, brilliant and in- 
spiring as the sunshine as it falls on the mountain 
and the plain. 

To meet the wants and satisfy the needs of 
man's intellectual and spiritual nature there must 
be something more than legal obedience; there 
must be sympathy and help for man somewhere, 
or he must perish in his weakness and orphanage. 
Jesus is an " High Priest, touched with the feeling 
of human infirmities." God in Christ Jesus has 
opened the store-house of His infinite love. In 
Him God invites a lost race to a " banquet of 
love," to a " feast of fat things." "Therefore 
they shall come and sing in the height of Zion, 
and shall flow together to the goodness of the 
Lord, — for wheat and for wine and for oil and for 
the young of the flock and the herd, — and their 
soul shall be as a watered garden, and they shall 



214 The Doctrine of Entire Sanctijication. 

not sorrow any more at all. * * * I will turn 
their mourning into joy, and I will comfort them 
and make them rejoice from their sorrow. And 
I will satiate the souls of the priests with fatness, 
and my people shall be satisfied with my good- 
ness, saith the Lord." In this fact lies the mar- 
velous power that makes the Christian life a labor 
of love. This perfect fellowship with Jesus is' the 
fact of religious enjoyment that reveals the Chris- 
tian to the world as one who finds his supreme 
delight in religious labor and acts of self-denial. 

But it is to be regretted that not all who are 
the children of God are in possession of this joy 
and gladness, and dwell in this healthful atmos- 
phere of Christian life. 

There are many who are servants of God, who 
delight in His work, and who are conscious that 
there is yet remaining in their hearts an unsatis- 
fied feeling ; a consciousness that they have not 
yet realized that intimacy of spiritual fellowship 
which God in Christ Jesus has made possible ; they 
realize that the Christ-life does not measure up 
to the apostolic standard. With them duty re- 
quires a constant effort, and notwithstanding their 
continued watchfulness their moral sky is often 
overcast with lowering clouds. They sigh and 



Legal Obedience. 215 

toil and struggle and sorrow when they should be 
courageous and rejoice greatly. To them life is a 
wilderness journey, — " A land of dearths and pits 
and snares/' where pestilence lurks in secret places 
and destructive tempests howl through the darken- 
ing sky. They have never yet possessed or ex- 
plored the land lying to the west of the Jordan, 
which Charles Wesley calls, — 

" The land of corn and wine and oil, 
Favored with God's peculiar smile, 
With every blessing blessed." 

These honest, earnest, sensitive Christians 
mourn over the leanness of the church and the 
unfruitfulness of their own souls ; they are striv- 
ing to be wholly given up to the Lord ; they have 
made good resolutions at stated periods, but their 
efforts have failed, their resolutions have been 
broken, their hopes disappointed, and chagrin and 
discouragement overwhelm them. They have oc- 
casional gleams of light which fall upon their 
troubled pathway like wandering sunbeams dur- 
ing the momentary interruptions of an April 
storm, which are quickly followed by sombre 
shadows that deepen into night, and they settle 
down into the conviction that the type of religious 
experience they possess is the best that is possible 



216 The Doctrine of Entire Sanctification. 

in this life; this caricature of religious enjoyment, 
this habitation among the tombs, is accepted by 
many as the ultimatum of religious enjoyment 
this side of heaven. These weary ones speak of 
peace and victory as something to be enjoyed when 
they reach home, and estimate their prospective 
happiness by a sharp contrast with the privation 
and sorrow they have endured in this life. 

It is strange that with an open Bible, a risen 
Christ and a comforting Holy Spirit, and the 
gracious experience of so great a cloud of witnesses, 
any should accept this relic of the dark ages as the 
will of their heavenly Father while He has placed 
a better life within easy reach of every human 
being, a life of faith, of love, of power, of glad- 
ness. God calls His own children into a life of 
conscious fellowship with Himself. Jesus presses 
the chalice, brimming with the water of salvation, 
to the parched lips of every famishing soul whose 
weary feet press the dusty highway of life. 

In the first announcement of Himself to the 
world as the Messiah, Jesus sounded the keynote 
of His gospel. "The Spirit of the Lord God is 
upon me because He hath anointed me to preach 
the gospel to the poor, He hath sent me to heal 
the broken-hearted and preach deliverance to the 



Legal Obedience. 217 

captives and the recovering of sight to the blind, 
and to set at liberty them that are bruised." And 
the promises accord with this statement, — " Blessed 
are they that do hunger and thirst after righteous- 
ness, for they shall be filled." " Whereby are 
given unto us exceeding great and precious prom- 
ises, that by these ye might be partakers of the 
Divine nature, having escaped the corruption that 
is in the world through lust." 

As a result of erroneous interpretation and from 
continued habit, we neither credit the promises of 
God nor receive them. 

Believers ask according to the Scripture rule 
" largely," but expect nothing in response to their 
petition. No man has authority to alter the 
precious words of Jesus. He says : " Come unto 
me all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I 
will give you re&P It is a criminal perversion of 
His promise to emasculate the rest. God speaks to 
each soul personally as though he were the only 
sorrowing Christian or needy sinner in all the uni- 
verse and places the whole, boundless store of 
grace at his disposal. 

" If ye abide in me and my words abide in you, 
ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done 
unto you." " These things have I spoken unto 



218 The Doctrine of Entire Sanctification. 

you that my joy might remain in you, and that 
your joy might be full." 

" And the Lord shall deliver me from every 
evil work and shall preserve me unto His heavenly 
kingdom." " And this is the confidence we have 
in Him, that if we ask anything according to His 
will He heareth us ; and if we know that He hear 
us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the 
petitions we desired of Him." " All the promises 
of God in Him are yea, and in Him they are amen, 
to the glory of God by us." 

If the believer is wholly consecrated to God he 
must be conscious of that fact, and if he has ac- 
cepted Christ in all His offices, he is also conscious 
of that fact ; and if those two steps are consciously 
taken, the believer must then be in a state of in- 
tense expectancy. There are three steps into the 
fulness of the Divine blessing, — believe, obey, 
receive. 

This degree of devotement to God implies 
supreme delight in His service and that His honor 
is the chief object and end of life. The believer 
having reached this point, does not seek his own 
happiness; his just wish, his supreme pleasure, is 
to please God. Every desire, every personal in- 
dulgence, is subordinate to this end. Every duty 



Legal Obedience. 219 

then is a channel of new and increasing delight, 
and the Lord Jesus is more precious than any 
earthly good. He then adopts the language of the 
poet, — 

"Give me Thyself, from every boast, 
From every wish set free, 
Let all I am in Thee be lost, 
But give Thyself to me." 

In the completeness of this union the believer 
no longer speaks of sanctification as an incidental 
blessing, however great. 

To him salvation is not a personal luxury to be 
enjoyed in seclusion nor paraded on special occa- 
sions ; he has come to see things in a better light, 
and Christ is become to him " the one altogether 
lovely," and every object of affection is subordi- 
nated to the one all-pervading and all-consuming 
love. 

" Thy gifts, alas ! cannot suffice 
Unless Thyself be given ; 
Thy presence makes my paradise, 
And where Thou art is heaven." 

The believer, thus completely given to God to 
belong to Him for His use, will then know by a 
Divine attestation that God accepts the gift, and 
he will have a consciousness that He cleanses the 



220 The Doctrine of Entire Sanctifieation. 

gift, and fills and occupies the entire being. He 
will then have 

"A heart resigned, submissive, meek; 
My great Redeemer's throne, 
Where only Christ is heard to speak, 
Where Jesus reigns alone." 

This is the apostolic idea of fellowship with 
God, — Christ enthroned in a pure heart, filling 
every avenue of the soul and body, so that heart 
and brain shall swell and throb with the intensity 
of Christian thought, and tremble under the over- 
whelming power of Divine love. 

The Holy Ghost then is no longer a theological 
abstraction. His Divine personality and office are 
no longer theoretical dogmas; He is a familiar 
friend, a heavenly guest, abiding in the soul in 
His transfiguring power and glory. The believer 
will not then walk much among the shadows. 
His religious enjoyment will not alternate between 
the noon-tide glories and the twilight with an oc- 
casional period that deepens into darkness that 
may be felt. In the continuance of this joy, he 
will realize that 

"There's a wideness in God's mercy 
Like the wideness of the sea; 
There's a kindness in His justice 
Which is more than liberty. 



Legal Obedience. 221 

M There's a welcome for the sinner, 
And more graces for the good ; 
There is mercy with the Saviour ; 
There is healing in His blood. 

" For the love of God is broader 

Than the compass of man's mind , 
And the heart of the Eternal 
Is most wondrously kind." 

But this manifestation of love is not passive 
and transient, but sweeps on with increasing 
power and majesty. 

The St. Clair River, which carries the water 
from the upper lakes to those below, scarcely rises 
or falls ; the water accumulates in the two great 
lakes above, and is so equally distributed that a 
fluctuation of two inches marks the change through 
all the season of drought or flood ; and a soul with 
an indwelling Christ has opened its portals to an 
ocean current of infinite love whose aggressive 
tide without fluctuation sweeps heavenward con- 
tinually. " And there is an ever-increasing hun- 
ger for more, for a better fellowship; in the very 
flame of this all-consuming love there is the per- 
petual cry of the soul : 

"Burn, burn, O love, within my heart; 
Burn fiercely night and day, 
Till all the dross of earthly loves 
Is burned and burned away." 



222 The Doctrine of Entire Sanctification. 

The theory of the gospel is sublime. The fact 
of the re-establishment of confidential relations 
between God and man through the merit of Jesus 
Christ is perfectly philosophical. It is man re- 
turning from his alienation to a true allegiance to 
God, and God returning to dwell in the heart 
made at the first for His companionship, and from 
which He was thrust out by sin. " If a man 
love me, he will keep my words and my Father 
will love him, and we will come unto him and 
make our abode with him." And this is accom- 
plished when the believer gives himself wholly to 
Christ and receives Christ in all His offices and 
for all He has promised. 

This is the rest of faith — not rest from labor or 
pain, but rest from doubt, from anxiety. It is 
rest from the harassing influence of fear. The 
believer no longer sings : 

"There is a heaven above the skies, — 
A heaven where pleasure never dies ; 
A heaven I sometimes hope to see ; — 
But then, I fear, 'tis not for me." 

He has passed beyond the region of doubts, 
and his daily experience is, — 

"I am dwelling on the mountain, 
Where the golden sunlight gleams 



Legal Obedience. 223 

O'er a land whose wondrous beauty 
Far exceeds my fondest dreams ; 

" Where the air is pure ethereal, 

Laden with the breath of flowers, 
That are blooming by the fountain 
'Neath the amaranthine bowers. 

" I can see far down the mountain, 
Where I wandered weary years, — 
Often hindered in my journey 
By the ghosts of doubts and fears. 

" Broken vows and disappointments, 
Thickly sprinkled all the way ; 
But the Spirit led unerring 
To the land I hold to-day." 



224 The Doctrine of Entire Sanctification. 



CHAPTER XXIX. 
THE EXTENT OF CHRISTIAN PRIVILEGE.* 

rjlHIS sermon was spoken and reported for the 
•*- press, and corrected by the author. It was 
our original intention to divide it and reproduce 
the substance in two chapters for the close of this 
volume, but we afterward concluded to insert it 
just as it was delivered : — 

Humanity in its blindness and weakness is nat- 
urally inclined to limit God in the possibilities of 
His grace. Christians have fallen into the habit 
of assuming that the word pardon covered the 
entire area of man's needs, and at the same time 
was the synonym of Christian privilege and the 
limit of the Divine possibility. The apostle says 
quickened, saved, filled, crowned. We will more 
readily perceive the gradations in this form : Re- 
generated, sanctified, filled with the Holy Ghost, 
endued with power, refreshed along the way, glori- 
fied with God in His kingdom. The inspired 
apostle, knowing the slowness of man to perceive 

* Ephesians iii. 20. 



The Extent of Christian Privilege. 225 

God's willingness and ability to aid His children 
in this life, prays for the Church of all the coming 
ages : " For this cause I bow my knees unto the 
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom the 
whole family in heaven and in earth is named." 
There is but one family of God ; He recognizes no 
caste or creed. 

" One family we dwell in Him, 
One Church above, beneath, 
Though now divided by the stream, 
The narrow stream of death. 

" One army of the living God, 
To His command we bow ; 
Part of the host have crossed the flood 
And part are crossing now." 

To us as a family, to all alike, belong the mar- 
velous privileges spoken of in the text. The 
apostle groups them in a few comprehensive propo- 
sitions in order that we may the more readily 
perceive them and glorify God in receiving and 
enjoying them. He prays (1) that God would 
grant the faithful "according to His riches in 
glory," "to be strengthened with might by His 
Spirit in the inner man; (2) "That Christ may 
dwell in your hearts by faith ;" (3) " And that ye 
may be rooted and grounded in love;" (4) that 
being thus rooted and grounded in love, "ye may 
15 



226 The Doctrine of Entire Sanctification. 

be able to comprehend with all saints what is 
the length and breadth and depth and height (of 
Christian privilege and of the Divine power of 
grace) and to know the love of Christ which passeth 
knowledge;" (5) "And be filled with all the fulness 
of God." This is the apostolic idea of Christian 
privilege, and Paul, looking down the ages, prayed 
that it might be our religious experience. This 
text is an outline of the Pauline idea of the Divine 
possibility. 

No one ever experienced all of this at the time 
of his conversion nor at the time of sanctification. 
I concede the fact that God may sanctify a soul in 
the act of conversion, but the fulness of Christian 
privilege and the measure of the Divine indwelling 
are leagues upon leagues beyond that. Those 
propositions embrace a great deal ; they are very 
comprehensive, but in their widest sense they do 
not express the possibility of infinite grace. When 
man has exerted himself to the limit of his capacity, 
even when aided by the Holy Ghost, there still 
remains an untrodden realm of grace outside the 
ability of finite utterance. Paul knowing this 
fact, and being under the influence of the Holy 
Ghost, and purposing to describe the infinite nature 
of grace and sweep away every possibility of sug- 



The Extent of Christian Privilege. 227 

gesting a doubt or creating a prejudice and leave 
no room for formalism and no excuse for weakness 
and spiritual leanness, no place for gloomy appre- 
hensions, he brings out the fact of complete salva- 
tion as a burst of sunshine and calls for a universal 
doxology, — "Now unto Him who is able to do 
exceeding abundantly above all we ask or think, 
unto Him be glory in the Church throughout all 
ages, world without end. Amen." 

This text is susceptible of two interpretations. 
It may signify the very excess of abundance, but 
it also positively declares the existence of something 
beyond the greatest abundance. Rev. Adam Clarke, 
D.D., the great Biblical scholar and exegete, says 
it signifies "over and above the greatest abun- 
dance." The apostle places the limit beyond hu- 
man perceptions. Without being hypercritical or 
punctilious, we assume that this text is designed to 
teach us that God is able to do for us in the realm 
of salvation beyond what we can ask, — yea, ex- 
ceeding abundantly beyond our capability to ask 
or think. The apostle rests not till he has estab- 
lished the infinite possibility in the realm of grace. 

How much, can you ask, of this infinite salvation 
which is at your disposal no w ? It is to be bestowed 
as a gift. God says, "Ask and ye shall receive;" 



228 The Doctrine of Entire Sanctification. 

formulate your request so as to embrace every 
possible need of your entire being ; you have yet 
unlimited resources from which to draw. You 
may begin with the Psalmist, if you are a Chris- 
tian, — " Create in me, oh God, a clean heart." Let 
us keep in the Divine order. Can you honestly 
pray that prayer? then God can answer it and 
make you every whit whole, — yea, He can go 
beyond that, and fill and occupy the purified heart 
with His own personality. But if it should appear 
that there is a limit, you have not yet reached it. 

Grand and overwhelming as your pardon was, 
it was but the beginning. Wonderful and exhil- 
arating as the cleansing appeared, " there is very 
much land to be possessed beyond that." If it be 
true that "Tongue can never express the sweet 
comfort and peace of a soul in its earliest love," 
much more is it impossible to explore and describe 
the infinite heights that stretch upward to the 
throne of God. 

But the apostle says it is not only inexpressible, 
but it challenges the grandest flight of human 
thought, — as far beyond thought as beyond speech, 
apparently " exceeding abundantly above " thought ; 
the limit, like the end of the beautiful rainbow, 
can never be reached by man. Can you measure 



The Extent of Christian Privilege. 229 

the flight of human thought? Can you tell how 
high it rises or how low it descends? Can you 
measure the breadth of its course or tell what it 
comprehends? Did you ever drop the plummet 
of your own thought into the abyss and bend your 
listening ear and catch the echo from the further 
shore that revealed to you the fact that you had 
thought through that which was supposed to be 
infinite? If not, then there is something beyond 
the range of your thinking. No bars nor bolts 
can confine thought. More majestic than the flight 
of bird, stronger than the great eagle, quicker than 
the lightnings of heaven, thought is at home 
everywhere, beyond all, above all, beyond the 
bright girdle of stellar dust that spans the mid- 
night sky. Far beyond the oldest constellation 
deepest buried in space, beyond the shining ranks 
of angels, past where burning seraphs keep cease- 
less guard about the throne, thought walks unchal- 
lenged, and behind the gorgeous drapery that en- 
folds Deity thought communes with the Father, 
but cannot measure the possibility of His grace or 
fathom the ocean of His love. 

But let us examine more closely this promise. 
This fulness of blessing is in Christ, — all is in 
Him ; no one can realize on this promise outside 



230 The Doctrine of Entire SancUfieation. 

of His meritorious intercession. When He emptied 
Himself and became the man of sorrows, He 
sounded the lowest depths of poverty; born in a 
manger; exiled in His infancy; an outcast, yet 
He went about doing good. The marble halls of 
the great were closed against Him ; the wealth and 
splendor of the world, though made by Him, 
ministered not to His wants, though His own skill 
fashioned the flower, and gave to the gold its lustre 
and to the diamond its brilliancy. With lips 
tremulous with emotion He said of Himself, — 
"The foxes have holes, the birds of the air have 
nests, but the Son of Man hath not where to lay 
His head." 

" Yes, the Kedeemer left His throne, 
His radiant throne on high — 
Surprising mercy, love unknown, 
To suffer, bleed and die. 

" He took the dying traitor's place, 
And suffered in his stead, 
For sinful man, O wondrous grace ! 
For sinful man He bled." 

But the order is reversed now. Jesus passed 
through the gates of vicarious death to the media- 
torial throne. A regal crown takes the place of 
the plaited thorns, the reed is succeeded by a 
sceptre of authority and power, and, outside of 



The Extent of Christian Privilege, 231 

His merit, poor, sorrowing and despondent human 
nature has no place to pillow its aching head. 

But there is one more fundamental fact. In 
God's dealings with the children of men He always 
gives them in the line of their asking, while at 
the same time He transcends the limits of their 
requests. When the inspired penman said, " The 
backslider is filled with his own ways," he gave 
expression to that which is inseparable from an 
infinite law, a fact more clearly stated by Jesus in 
His public ministry. Having stated the general 
proposition that " every one that asketh receiveth," 
He immediately affirmed the order of giving : " If 
a son shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, 
will he give him a stone; or if he ask a fish, will 
he give him a serpent ; or if he ask an egg, will he 
give him a scorpion?" The Divine method is to 
give on the line of request, but to give with an 
infinite liberality. 

When Hagar went out from the patriarchal 
home she knew not what was to befall her. With 
a sad heart and weary footsteps she wandered in 
the wilderness, and when the water was spent 
and the bread was consumed, in the agony of 
despair, she laid her son under one of the 
shrubs to shelter him from the scorching heat. 



232 The Doctrine of Entire Sanctifieation. 

" She went and sat down over against him a good 
way off," that she might not see her child die. 
She wept aloud ; she asked God only for a draught 
of water to refresh the dying child. But God was 
not an indifferent spectator; He had seen the mute 
agony of the lad and heard his piteous cry, and 
the angel of God called unto Hagar out of heaven 
and said, " What aileth thee, Hagar ? Fear not, 
God hath heard the voice of the lad where he is ; 
arise, lift up the lad and hold him in thy hand, 
for I will make of him a great nation. And God 
opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water, and 
she went and filled the water-skin and gave the 
lad tp drink," and the child grew, and around that 
well his descendants became a mightv nation, and 
around the same well the children of Ishmael 
gather yet to slake their thirst. God fulfilled His 
promise to Hagar, and Ishmael became great — the 
only nation of all antiquity that " never bowed the 
neck to the yoke of a foreign conqueror." Hagar 
asked only for a draught to supply her immediate 
wants ; God gave her a well, all her own. 

When Joseph suffered imprisonment under false 
accusation the chain was upon him cutting down 
through muscle and nerve and sinew to the bone. 
He cried mightily for relief and God took away 



The Extent of Christian Privilege. 233 

the chain from his festering limb, put a chain of 
gold about his neck, made him to ride in the 
second chariot, and they cried before him, " Bow 
the knee," "and only in the throne was Pharaoh 
greater than Joseph." 

The prodigal amid the swine-herds, in the ur- 
gency of his need, thought only of the offal 
from the kitchen table and a servant's place in the 
family. The father had no such thought, and 
when the wanderer returned he brought forth the 
ring and robe and the penitent was clad in the 
family apparel, the fatlings were killed and the 
festivities organized upon an Oriental liberality, 
and every one was happy except the narrow- 
minded and selfish brother. Thus it always has 
been and ever must be. God surprises His will- 
ing and obedient children with the abundance of 
His gifts. 

(1) There is more implied in pardon than is 
apparent to the thoughtless. No finite mind can 
analyze and comprehend the heinous nature of sin. 
How the Holy God can pardon a rebel against 
His law, restore him to his place in the Divine 
family and invest him with all the rights and 
privileges of a sinless child, is one of the incom- 
prehensible mysteries of the Divine government. 



234 The Doctrine of Entire Sanctijication. 

(2) There is more implied in cleansing than the 
mind can conceive. The inspired volume says 
man's sin is like scarlet and red like crimson, but 
it declares the Divine ability to make the soul where 
sin has done its utmost " whiter than snow." 
How, by the Divine alchemy of grace, God elimin- 
ates impurity from the spiritual nature of man, 
empties him of self, and fills him with all the ful- 
ness of God, we may never know, but although we 
do not know how, yet it is our privilege to know 
He does do it. 

(3) God does more to sustain in time of affliction 
than we can ask or think. The world is full of 
weeping ; the tide of sorrow swells and surges on- 
ward like a destroying flood ; it sweeps away all 
barriers and engulfs each succeeding generation. 
No nation, no tribe, no caste, no kindred or tongue, 
escapes its destroying touch. In the tumult of 
conflicting interests, in the struggle for bread, or 
place, or power, such is the tension of brain and 
heart that only those who have the Divine help 
survive defeat. How many broken hearts are cold 
and still under the ice in the great river running 
yonder, below the city ! How regularly the daily 
papers lay down at your doors every morning their 
bloody bundle of suicides and murderers ! A few 



The Extent of Christian Privilege. 235 

years ago a dear friend was unfortunate in busi- 
ness — he was not a gambler, he was not dissolute 
or extra vagant, but an ambitious man. In an un- 
fortunate investment he lost heavily ; there was a 
general crash, and because he could not meet his 
engagements he put a pistol to his ear, blew his 
brains out and went down amid the debris of his 
broken fortune. Very unlike this was the other 
one whose soul was filled with Jesus, who, on the 
day following the Black Friday of 1874, when he 
came to his place of business, found everything in 
the hands of the officers. His partner came weep- 
ing and exclaimed, " What are we coming to next?" 
With calmness and self-poise he exclaimed, " For ye 
are not come to the mountain that could be touched, 
and to the burning fire, and the thick cloud, and 
darkness, and tempest, and the sound of a trumpet, 
and the voice of words which they that heard en- 
treated that no more might be spoken to them. 
. . . But ye are come to Mt. Zion, the city of 
the living God, and to the heavenly Jerusalem, 
and to an innumerable company of angels, to the 
general assembly and Church of the first-born 
which are written in heaven, and to God, the judge 
of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, 
and to Jesus, the mediator of the new covenant, and 



236 The Doctrine of Entire Sanctifieation. 

to the blood of sprinkling that speaketh better 
things than the blood offered by Abel. . . ." 
Therefore let us " Receiving a kingdom that cannot 
be moved, have grace to serve God with boldness." 

Able to do exceeding abundantly. I have seen 
the young mother beside the coffin that enclosed 
the form of her first-born • but she wept not with- 
out hope ; the same Jesus that said, " Of such is 
the kingdom of heaven," placed the everlasting 
arms about her, and looking upward, she saw the 
blood washed spirit crowned and sceptred, and 
mingling with the seraphic company about the 
throne. There is no limit to His ability to aid in 
planning and doing for His cause. It is a great 
mistake to suppose we are using God and direct- 
ing Him in the work of saving men. He is first. 
He is to use us ; we must submit to the Divine 
order. Jesus was careful to have the apostles un- 
derstand this, and He commanded them to " tarry 
at Jerusalem " till they should be endued with 
power from on high. 

God is not only able to do all of this, but He is 
waiting to surprise you with the " exceeding abun- 
dance " of His giving and doing. He is only 
waiting till you are willing to surrender the fleet- 
ing things of this world for the true riches, 



The Extent of Christian Privilege. 237 

the fading laurels of earthly ambition " for 
the honor that abideth ; " till you are willing to 
turn away from the glittering allurements of earth 
and accept Christ in His fulness. He is waiting 
only for you to recognize the fact that you cannot 
have the joys and privileges of the Christian relig- 
ion separate and apart from the person of the Lord 
Jesus Christ, and that you cannot have Him, in 
His fulness, except on the condition that you sur- 
render all else and accept Him with all that is 
implied in the covenant of full salvation. I re- 
member once when a lad I came in from my play, 
sat on the door-step weary and hungry ; my hands 
were full of playthings. I w T as impatient and pet- 
ulant ; I asked mother for a lunch. She said I am 
very busy now, my son ; go get what you want; 
the cupboard is full. I repeated my request. She 
replied, there is bread and butter and cold meat, 
and pies and milk ; w T on't you please wait on your- 
self ? But I repeated my request with more em- 
phasis than politeness, and sat there complaining 
until, exasperated with my stubborness, she came 
out with a rattan and persuaded me to come in 
the house, but through my wilfulness I forfeited 
my mother's approval and lost my dinner also. 
Thus we who are Christians come to God sor- 



238 The Doctrine of Entire Sanctification. 

rowing, it may be, and fretted by the disappoint- 
ments of life, asking for the substantial joys of 
salvation, but unwilling to lay down our toys and 
accept Jesus. To-day, as in that " last great day 
of the feast," Jesus stands in His Church as He 
then stood in the temple, and cries with a loud 
voice : " If any man thirst, let him come unto me 
and drink." But we stand with our hands filled 
with toys, murmuring and complaining, unwilling 
to submit to His requirements and receive His 
salvation. But because God has provided thus 
lavishly He would be pleased if we would appre- 
ciate Him enough to accept His bounty and re- 
ceive and reciprocate His love. God made man to 
be happy; He provided for his complete happi- 
ness. God never arbitrarily mixed a cup of bitter- 
ness for any child of His. But there is but one 
place where man can be perfectly happy, and that 
is where he harmonizes perfectly with God. 

That sinful man might be brought into this state 
of reconciliation and perfect adjustment to the 
Divine nature God gave His only begotten Son to 
be a ransom for him. And it would please our 
Heavenly Father if we would cease to groan over 
the burdens of duty, cease complaining of the 
labors and obligations of life and render Him a 



The Extent of Christian Privilege. 239 

cheerful service in the brightness and sunshine of 
His love. We are so dolorous, so forlorn, so bur- 
dened, as if the religion of Jesus was a sort of 
solitary confinement, as if duty was irksome. We 
make the church so gloomy that a stranger would 
think that most of the members had been con- 
verted in a graveyard. It would please God if we 
would cease this continuous caricature of His 
worship and break forth in a full chorus of 
praise to His name. Our average service is too 
stale. Charles Wesley struck the key-note of 
religious gladness more than one hundred years 
ago. 

" Let me no more in deep complaint, 

My leanness ! oh ! my leanness cry : 
Alone consumed of pining want, 

Of all my Father's children I. 
The painful thirst, the fond desire 

Thy joyous presence shall remove, 
But my full soul shall still require 

A whole eternity of love." 

God would have His people be strong, energetic, 
enthusiastic, victorious. The text indicates a 
joyful state of heart in this life : " Now unto 
Him who is able to do exceeding abundantly — 
unto Him be glory in the church throughout all 
ages, world without end." 



240 The Doctrine of Entire Sanctification. 

Some years ago in one of my charges in the East 
I went into a Sunday morning class-meeting. It 
was led by a superannuated preacher, one of the best 
men in the world ; but to him religion was a life 
of stern devotion to duty. When the meeting be- 
came a little dull and seemed to drag he began to 
sing : 

" Come on, my partners in distress, 
My comrades through this wilderness, 
Who still your bodies feel." 

I was just home from a national camp-meeting, 
was all aglow with the conscious presence of God. 
I could not join heartily in the song, but said, please 
now let us have that other hymn : 

" Jesus, the name high over all, 
In hell or earth or sky ; 
Angels and men before it fall, 
And devils fear and fly." 

Will you, dear friends, remain longer in the 
gloom and poverty of an indifferent experience, or 
will you now accept the fulness of His grace and 
live ? Not many years since a gallant steamer on 
the South American coast saw a ship drifting lazily 
before the breeze ; her masts were broken, her sails 
torn to shreds, and the signal of distress flying. A 
boat was put off, and coming alongside, called out 



The Extent of Christian Privilege. 241 

to know the cause of their trouble ; faintly the 
response came back, "We are dying of thirst ; 
driven out of our course by the storms, our sup- 
plies are consumed, we are dying of thirst, send us 
water or we perish." Quickly the command was 
given, a Let down your buckets, you are no longer in 
the salt water of the ocean — you are in the mouth 
of the Amazon. It is fifty leagues in width, it's a 
thousand fathoms deep, it is as fresh and pure as 
the perpetual snows that cover its far-off mountaiu 
home; letdown your buckets and drink and live." 
Thus the church scuds under bare poles before the 
winds of scepticism, or drifts with the tide of world- 
liness, with broken masts and shredded sail, flying 
the signal of distress, and absolutely dying of want 
in the midst of plenty, suffering the untold agonies 
of spiritual thirst while the ocean of salvation rolls 
its eternal fulness on every side. 

,€ Its streams the whole creation reach. 
So plenteous is the store ; 
Enough for all, enough for each, 
Enough for evermore.' ' 

The work of the Master is not irksome to those 
who enjoy His presence in the heart, to those who 
walk in fellowship with Him. 
16 



242 The Doetrine of Entire Sanctifieation. 

" The hill of Zion yields 

A thousand sacred sweets 
Before we reach the heavenly fields 
Or walk the golden streets.' ' 

In view of all these, the apostle calls upon the 
church for one universal doxology, — " Now unto 
Him be glory ; Glory be to the Father, Glory be 
unto the Son, Glory be unto the Holy Ghost, world 
without end, Anien." 



Christian Manhood not Identical 243 



CHAPTER XXX.* 

CHRISTIAN MAiraOOD NOT IDENTICAL WITH EX- 

TIEE SANCTIFICATION. 

CHRISTIAN Manhood in its perfection differs 
from Entire Sanctification, and also from 
Christian Maturity in its ordinary sense. Chris- 
tian Purity, or Entire Sanctification, is possible to 
all believers as an instantaneous work of grace. 
Maturity in its comprehensive sense is possible to 
all, regardless of worldly condition. But Chris- 
tian Manhood as distinguished fromHeart Purity is 
so clearly taught in the Scriptures that it appears 
impossible that any one should conceive of them 
as the same state. The Bible speaks of Purity of 
Heart, of Perfect Love, as a moral condition or a 
gracious state of the soul, — a quality imparted to 
the spiritual nature of man by the Holy Ghost in 
response to a specific act of faith. But it also 
speaks of perfect Christian Manhood. 

Perfect Manhood differs in many essentials from 
Entire Sanctification. Sanctification embodies pure- 

*Ephes. iv. 



244 The Doctrine of Entire Sanctification. 

ness, holiness. Perfection of manhood embraces 
the idea of measurement. It comprehends the 
whole man in his tripartite nature, and implies 
the perfection of every department of his being, 
and this perfection completed to a state of ma- 
turity. Symmetry is the one essential to this 
state of perfection. A tree is perfect when all its 
parts are present, and each one is perfect, and the 
tree has completed its growth, and the last stage of 
growth has matured and hardened its fibre, and 
yet no part of the tree has commenced to decay. 
An apple is perfect when all its parts and con- 
stituents are present in a state of perfect develop- 
ment, and the juices and flavor have matured, and 
decay has not supervened. 

A perfect man embraces all the constituent 
properties of manhood, symmetrically adjusted to 
each other, with all the bodily organs present and 
perfect, and all the graces and all the faculties 
complete and mature, and yet none of the capa- 
bilities having reached a point of incipient decay. 
It is possible for the vilest sinner to be made holy 
at once ; for that is exclusively God's work, and 
it is limited only by man's acceptance. Any one 
can have a perfect salvation whenever he will, by 
faith, receive it as a gracious gift; but perfect 



Christian Manhood not Identical. 245 

manhood lies very far in advance of complete 
salvation. Salvation implies the adj astment of all 
our relations with God, and from this perfect 
adjustment of relationships arises the fellowship of 
the human with the Divine nature. This is of 
necessity a primary stage, and an adjunct of purifi- 
cation. " If we walk in the light as He is in the 
light we have fellowship one with another (with 
the Divine nature) and the blood of Jesus Christ, 
His Son, cleanseth us from all sin/' Thus in the 
Divine order God places complete salvation, perfect 
deliverance from sin, at the beginning, rather than 
at the close of a perfect life. 

A good physical development with mental and 
moral qualities that correspond, all sanctified by 
grace so that soul, body and spirit shall jointly 
obey the law of God, is not an ideal conception of 
the human mind, but is rather the objective point 
of the Divine effort with man. The Gospel 
proposes to so regulate man, to so develop and 
strengthen him in every department of his being, 
that he shall have all these qualities in the per- 
fection of their strength and the healthfulness of 
their function. Humanity recognizes perfection 
in everything except in manhood as the one desir- 
able quality. Perfection is the universal standard 



246 The Doctrine of Entire Sanctification. 

of merit. The world demands it everywhere else, 
and it is only when we apply the term perfection 
to the work of grace in the heart, or to the recti- 
tude of Christian manhood, that it gives offense. 

In his Epistle to the Ephesians the apostle 
speaks of "The measure of the stature of the 
fulness of Christ." Not one of these terms is 
synonymous with Holiness or Entire Purifica- 
tion : stature (helikia), greatness, length ; measure 
{metron) y capacity, breadth; fulness (from pleroma), 
completeness, rotundness, ripeness. These terms, 
without exception, in their original roots and in 
their derivatives, have reference to size, to quan- 
tity. These terms are never used by the Spirit to 
indicate any degree of salvation, but refer especially 
to the progress in this life. They indicate the pos- 
sible development of Christian manhood. They 
are terms that apply to character in its formation 
and maturity. 

The two primary experiences of perfect salva- 
tion are both instantaneously wrought by the 
Holy Spirit. Justification, with its concomitants, 
is a religious state of which we cannot conceive as 
being attainable by a disciplinary process. Entire 
sanctification, being a part of man's salvation and 
accomplished by God alone, must of necessity be 



Christian Manhood not Identical. 247 

done at once. " The blood of Jesus Christ, His 
Son, cleanseth us from all sin." This state of 
perfect salvation, in the Divine order, is to pre- 
cede the development which is to continue up to 
the standard of perfect manhood. 

The perfection the apostle speaks of in the 
fourth chapter of Ephesians involves more than 
Entire Purity — more than Perfect Love. He 
there directs the thought of the Church to a state 
of manhood obligatory upon all, and possible of 
attainment by all, but a state which is gradual in 
its nature and processes. Whatever may be em- 
braced in this perfect man, it is subsequent to 
Entire Sanctification, and is the result of effort 
and continuous progress. Although the great 
majority of the Church at Ephesus were wholly 
sanctified, Paul speaks of a condition of manhood 
lying beyond that, — a mature state that the gospel, 
through its Divine helps, made possible to the 
entire race of man as certainly as the Edenic state 
was possible to Adam and his descendants in the 
first covenant. And he points out the Divine 
agencies that were established, and the instrument- 
alities of Christian culture and edification that 
were to continue operative until this golden day 
should dawn brightly upon the world. "He 



248 The Doctrine of Entire Sanctification. 

gave some apostles, and some prophets, and some 
evangelists, and some pastors and teachers; for 
the perfecting of the saints, for the work of 
the ministry, for the edifying of the body of 
Christ, till we all come . . . unto a perfect 
man." 

There is a difference between intellectual devel- 
opment and religious progress; but both these 
processes involve the same faculties, and are inti- 
mately related. The instrumentality of scientific 
advancement is reason. No progress was ever 
made without the use of this power. The first 
dawn of reason is above instinct. Reason is the 
zero line of humanity, and is both the lever and 
fulcrum of its advancement. Reason and instinct 
are not at all alike. Instinct can neither be im- 
proved nor changed. The bee never alters the 
angle of his cell, never deviates at any point 
from the custom of his predecessors. The beaver 
builds his house on the same plan, of the same 
style of architecture, and by the same methods 
pursued by the long line of ancestry since the first 
amphibious rodent constructed his primitive dwell- 
ing. Monkeys imitate that which they see; but 
not one of them, in all the march of centuries, ever 
broke through his animal environments, and by a 



Christian Manhood not Identical. 249 

process of reasoning improved his condition, or 
changed the current of his life. 

It is beeause man can reason, that he is capable 
of advancement in the realm of science. But as 
the Christian religion is Divine, and is communi- 
cated by a special revelation of God, it is of ne- 
cessity by faith that man gains a knowledge of 
the Son of God and lays the foundation of his 
religious progress. There is also a difference in 
the object of these instrumentalities. Reason's ob- 
ject is finite and natural. The object of Christian 
faith is the infinite and eternal God. Reason is 
the instrumentality by which the intellect subju- 
gates matter to its authority and control. Faith 
connects the whole man to God, and raises him 
above matter, and enables him, in the realm of 
consciousness, to experience the fellowship of the 
spiritual and invisible. 

''Faith lends her realizing light, — 

The clouds disperse, the shadows fly ; 
The invisible appears in sight, 
And God is seen by mortal eye." 

Reason operates in the present, and by the aid 
of its accumulated facts explores both the past 
and the future. Reason moulds the pliant clay, 
makes the brick, rears the edifice, and beautifies 



250 The Doctrine of Entire Sanctification. 

and adorns the temple. Reason invents machinery 
to lessen the burden of man's toil and give him 
time for study, and by this means contributes to 
his advancement. Reason utilizes steam and elec- 
tricity, invented the telephone and the heliograph, 
and by these instrumentalities the whole world is 
brought into neighborhood relations. But faith 
goes beyond the finite, and pierces the invisible, 
and actually opens to man the resources of the 
infinite in the realm of spirit and affection. Faith 
is the veriest delusion if it does not serve as a chan- 
nel of open communication between the dependent 
soul and a personal God. 

Upon this logical postulate we base a general 
proposition — one that admits of universal applica- 
tion — viz. : The being that has the widest connec- 
tion with the universe rises the highest in the 
scale of existence. This is true in every depart- 
ment of nature. The lichen has power to attach 
itself to the rock ; but although it has life, it gets 
but a limited supply of food and makes but little 
progress. The tiniest flower and the California 
pine are subject to the same law. The polyp, 
which is the connecting link between the animal 
and the vegetable kingdoms, though permanently 
located, is provided with an arm, or possessed of 



Christian Manhood not Identical. 251 

the means of reaching out and gathering material 
for growth from sources which, were it not for this 
wise arrangement of nature, would be entirely be- 
yond its power, and thus it rises in a small degree 
in the scale of being above the vegetable kingdom. 

But the perfect animal has hearing, sight and 
motion. By these he is more broadly connected 
with nature. He seeks and finds food in various 
localities. Guided by instinct, he pursues pleas- 
ure, follows the bent of his impulses, gratifies his 
desires, and executes his purposes. But all his 
powers are limited by law on the one side, and by 
capacity and endurance on the other. No posi- 
tion, no environments, can change his nature. 
No combination of circumstances can improve his 
capacity. A buffalo in Central Park has all the 
instincts, passions and purposes of his fellow on 
the plains. A house-fly on the apex of a church 
steeple cannot, by virtue of his elevated and favor- 
able position, extend the range of his vision be- 
yond its natural capacity. The advantageous po- 
sition is of no use to him, because his eye is so con- 
structed that he can only see a distance of six feet. 

Man rises above the lower animals, not because 
he has better hearing, or better sight, or better 
motion, but because he possesses the mysterious 



252 The Doctrine of Entire Sanctification. 

and almost unlimited power of reason. By the 
use of an instrument man multiplies the vibrations 
of the atmosphere and improves his hearing. By 
reason also he discovers that he can multiply the 
rays of light on a given space, and improve his 
sight, and support his failing eyes. He reasons 
till he constructs a telescope, and is at home any- 
where in space. 

According to the general proposition now under 
consideration, the Christian man, by faith, rises 
into the realm of spirit and affection, — a realm as 
inaccessible to reason as it is to instinct — a region 
not only unexplored by science, but unknown to 
its vocabulary — a real country whose brilliant 
portals yield not to the magic wand of the scien- 
tific adventurer, and whose unfading beauties 
never flashed through the lens of the most power- 
ful telescope, but whose mysterious secrets are 
communicated to the trusting soul. " The secret 
of the Lord is with them that fear him/' 

Faith unites the soul to God, and God, accord- 
ing to the revealed promise, answers out of the 
darkness to every believing heart and makes it to 
know both His existence and His love. "For we 
know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle 
were dissolved, we have a building with God, a 



Christian Manhood not Identical. 253 

house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens." 
" We are of God ; he that knoweth God heareth 
us; he that is not of God heareth not us." 
"Hereby know we the spirit of truth and the 
spirit of error." " Beloved, let us love one another, 
for love is of God, and every one that loveth is 
born of God and knoweth God, for God is love. 
. . . No man hath seen God at any time. If 
we love one another God dwelleth in us, and His 
love is perfected in us. Hereby know we that we 
dwell in Him and He in us, because He hath 
given us of His Spirit." The compassionate Father 
supplements the ignorance and weakness of man. 
He opens to every trusting heart His own infinite 
fulness, satisfies all its present needs, and for man's 
consolation reveals to him the mansions prepared 
for the righteous, and in the full confidence of this 
Divine fellowship the believer walks like a native 
about the throne. 

According to this universal law now under con- 
sideration, we perceive that, as the animal rises 
above the vegetable, and as the scientific man rises 
above the sensualist, the cultured man of faith rises 
above the unbelieving philosopher, because he has 
wider connections with the universe and avails 
himself of resources which open only to faith. 



254 The Doctrine of Entire Sanctification. 

In the attainment of perfect manhood, as an 
essential and primary step, the moral and spiritual 
natures are purified from all hereditary and ac- 
cumulated pollution ; and the intellectual and affec- 
tional natures are purified from all hereditary 
weakness and narrowness ; and the bodily organism 
is purified from the hereditary dominion and con- 
trol of narcotics and alcoholic poisons and fortified 
against all excesses and the consequent diseases of 
the nervous system. 

And having made the necessary proficiency in 
the primary stages of salvation and taken on its 
legitimate proportions, the whole man, in his trip- 
artite nature, stands erect "a perfect man." 

The California pine can be grown in a vase 
under a close cover. When thus environed it 
pushes up its branches to the top of the inverted 
glass that covers it and then turns them down 
again into the small supply of soil that covers the 
roots, and when it has consumed all the nutriment 
which has been provided for its growth it dies of 
starvation. It is only when fed by the elements 
of its native soil and vitalized by its native air 
that it reaches such majestic proportions as to be- 
come the wonder and admiration of the world. 

And, on the same principle of demand and 



Christian Manhood not Identical. 255 

supply, if sinful man completely surround himself 
with evil influences, so that he is perfectly insulated 
from God/ hermetically sealed in an inverted glass 
jar of unbelief, in such a condition he must, of 
necessity, grow downward or feed upon himself 
and perish. It is only when man breaks the vase 
and avails himself of the infinite resources of 
Jehovah — receives life and health, purity and 
strength, and takes on of the abundance of his 
Father's bounty, becomes a king and a priest unto 
God, dwells in his native soil of sympathy and 
affection wherein he was created and breathes the 
native air of Divine fellowship — that he fulfills the 
possibilities of the gospel and attains to the stand- 
ard of perfect manhood. 



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